Weather and the ceop‐yield in the north‐east counties of Scotland

Abstract

1) INTRODUCTORY.--l'hough it has been recognised for centuries that the yield of the crops in any country is greatly dependent on the weather, yet the weather is so complex a quatitity that it has proved very difficult, in fact, in some cases almost impossible, to unravel the effects of the various elements that constitute the weather and so find the effect of each separate element. In tropical and sub-tropical regions abundance or defect of rainfall has, without a doubt, a very iilarlted effect on the yield, and it is doubtless due to this that rainfall was one of the first elements to be studied. But in temperate climates rainfall plays an important part in the crop yield. In a paper by Sir Napier Shaw,' "Seasons in the British Isles from 18i8," the influence of the autumn rainfall on the wheat yield of the following year is discussed, and it is shown that the rainfall of this period has a much greater influenco than liad hitherto been supposed. This was followed up by a very detailed investigation of the yieId of the different crops in Eastern England by R. H. Hooker.2 In his investigation Hooker employed the method of correlation, and his results he found to be in very good agreement with Shaw's conclusions. In Sweden the subject has been dealt with in a very thorough manner by Axel Wallh, while in America J. Warren Smith and in India S. M. Jacob have each endeavoured to solve this

A CLIMATIC PATTERN BETWEEN LATITUDES 40o AND 70o N. AND ITS PROBABLE INFLUENCE ON BIOLOGICAL DISTRIBUTIONS

“…The discovery of the importance of length of day in plant growth or flowering is comparatively recent. Murneek (1948) says 'To W. W. Garner and H. A. Allard (1920) is due all the credit for the disclosure and demonstration of the phenomenon of photoperiodism. I t was a real surprise to many investigators of plant life that so "dilute" an environmental factor as length of day has so potent an effect on many plants'.…”