Study: Global warming will cut wheat yields
OSLO — Global warming will reduce average wheat yields by 6 percent for every 1.8-degree increase in temperature, a study by a U.S.-led team of scientists said today. That would be a bigger-than-expected brake on food production. The decrease would be 46.2 million tons from a harvest of 771 million tons of wheat worldwide in 2012, highlighting a need to breed more heat-tolerant crops. In recent decades, wheat yields have declined in hotter sites such as India, Africa, Brazil and Australia, more than offsetting yield gains in some cooler places, including parts of the United States, Europe and China, the study showed. “Global wheat production is estimated to fall by 6 percent for each degree Celsius — 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit — of further temperature increase,” according to the scientists, who used wheat-crop computer models and field experiments. They said there are many options to limit the damage from higher temperatures involving the development of wheat types that toler...