Silver lining to a climate crisis in multiple prospects for alleviating crop waterlogging under future climates

Abstract

Extreme weather events threaten food security, yet global assessments of impacts caused by crop waterlogging are rare. Here we first develop a paradigm that distils common stress patterns across environments, genotypes and climate horizons. Second, we embed improved process-based understanding into a farming systems model to discern changes in global crop waterlogging under future climates. Third, we develop avenues for adapting cropping systems to waterlogging contextualised by environment. We find that yield penalties caused by waterlogging increase from 3–11% historically to 10–20% by 2080, with penalties reflecting a trade-off between the duration of waterlogging and the timing of waterlogging relative to crop stage. We document greater potential for waterlogging-tolerant genotypes in environments with longer temperate growing seasons (e.g., UK, France, Russia, China), compared with environments with higher annualised ratios of evapotranspiration to precipitation (e.g., Australia). Under future climates, altering sowing time and adoption of waterlogging-tolerant genotypes reduces yield penalties by 18%, while earlier sowing of winter genotypes alleviates waterlogging by 8%. We highlight the serendipitous outcome wherein waterlogging stress patterns under present conditions are likely to be similar to those in the future, suggesting that adaptations for future climates could be designed using stress patterns realised today.

Photosynthetic adaptation mechanisms of waterlogged wheat (Triticum aestivum) at flowering under exogenous nitric oxide donor application

“…Waterlogging is a significant factor hindering the optimal yield of wheat (Pampana et al, 2016; de S. Nóia Júnior et al, 2023; Liu et al, 2023). With the projected increase in global temperatures, precipitation patterns are expected to exhibit a rising trend in the future (Du et al, 2021; Kai et al, 2022), which may further exacerbate the detrimental impacts of waterlogging on wheat yield and pose a threat to food security, not only in China but also worldwide (Herzog et al, 2016; Pampana et al, 2016).…”

“…The existing literature have extensively summarized the potential mechanisms that contribute to this phenomenon, including physical change in soil (i.e., soil compaction, oxygen depletion, CO 2 accumulation, and low diffusion coefficient for gases), chemical changes in soil (i.e., ion toxicity, secondary metabolite toxicity, low redox potential, and declined soil pH ), biological changes in soil (i.e., low mineralization rate, low aerobic microbial activity, and low immobilization rate) and low growth rate and poor metabolic capability of all organs in plants (Hossain and Uddin, 2011; Arduini et al, 2016; Herzog et al, 2016; Manik et al, 2019; Kaur et al, 2020; de S. Nóia Júnior et al, 2023). From the perspective of plant growth and metabolic processes, the primary impact of waterlogging on wheat plants is the insufficient supply of assimilates due to reduced photosynthetic production capacity during waterlogging (Cotrozzi et al, 2021; Ma et al, 2022a; Olorunwa et al, 2022; Li et al, 2023; Liu et al, 2023).…”

MEDIATOR SUBUNIT 25 modulates ERFVII-controlled hypoxia responses in Arabidopsis

“…Increased frequencies of heavy rains due to climate change has made flooding one of the most prevalent and severe abiotic stresses threatening agricultural production (Liu et al, 2023). Flooding stress can occur in the form of submergence of the whole plant or waterlogging, which mainly affects the root system.…”

Silicon, by promoting a homeostatic balance of C:N:P and nutrient use efficiency, attenuates K deficiency, favoring sustainable bean cultivation

“…Excessive rainfalls result in further destructive and dangerous natural hazards, that is, floods, which cause serious damage to life and soils every year. An increase in crop flooding area from 10 to 20% by 2080 is expected [ 2 ]. In soils, excess rainfall promotes leaching of cations, especially K, decreasing its availability in the soil solution [ 3 ].…”