Management of field and Horticultural Crops Under Changing Climatic Scenario

Abstract

Low productivity in food grains, vegetable and fruit crops worldwide is the major cause of climate change. Increasing temperatures limits the water availability, flooding and salinity hamper the sustainable horticultural production. Changing climatic scenario leads to the crop failure, reduced production, poor quality produce and more incidences in pests and diseases makes food grain, vegetable and fruit production makes unprofitable. Droughts and soil salinity are major factors makes temperature worsening in horticultural production. Therefore, need arises to use appropriate climate resilient technologies and approaches to ward off various new insect pests, diseases and hitherto unheard stresses and increase the productivity to feed the global population without compromising on the quality of the produce. A holistic climate resilient technologies consisting of mulching with crop residue management which helps in soil moisture conservation. Proper drainage due to heavy rains can be avoided by adoption of raised beds in vegetable crops. New genotypes tolerant to high temperature, droughts, salinity and conventional and non-conventional breeding techniques are essentially required to meet these challenges.