Department of Vegetable Crops, Bidhan Chandra Krishi Viswavidyalaya, Mohanpur, West-Bengal, India
Vegetables are an important component of human diet as they are the only source of nutrients, vitamins and minerals. They are also good remunerative to the farmer as they fetch higher price in the market. Likewise other crops, they are also being hit by the consequences of climate change such as global warming, changes in seasonal and monsoon pattern and biotic and abiotic factors. Under changing climatic situations crop failures, shortage of yields, reduction in quality and increasing pest and disease problems are common and they render the vegetable cultivation unprofitable. As many physiological processes and enzymatic activities are temperature dependent, they are going to be largely effected. Drought and salinity are the two important consequences of increase in temperature worsening vegetable cultivation. Increase in CO2 may increase crop yields due to increased CO2 fertilization, but decreases after some extent. Anthropogenic air pollutants such as CO2, CH4 and CFC's are contributing to the global warming and dioxides of nitrogen and sulphur are causing depletion of ozone layer and permitting the entry of harmful UV rays. These affects of climate change also influence the pest and disease occurrences, host-pathogen interactions, distribution and ecology of insects, time of appearance, migration to new places and their overwintering capacity, there by becoming major setback to vegetable cultivation. Potato, among the all vegetables, is most vulnerable to climate change due to its exact climatic requirement for various physiological processes.
The mean annual temperature of India is increased by 0.460c over a period of last 111 years due to the increased amount of green house gases like CO2 and CH4 in atmosphere. Potato productivity is expected to decline in all potato growing states of India and is highest for Karnataka with a reduction of 18.68% by 2020. Over the next 50 years, aphids will appear at least eight days earlier in the spring spreading viral diseases. Fecundity of several Limited availability of literature indicates that research on changing climatic conditions in respect to vegetable crops has been lacking, which has to be taken up as a missionary approach.
Climate change, Vegetables, Pest and diseases, Production problems
