Abstract
Abiotic stresses have direct effects on plant growth and development. In agriculture, sub-optimal values of temperature, light intensity, and relative humidity can limit crop yield and reduce product quality. Temperature has a direct effect on whole plant metabolism, and low or high temperatures can reduce growth or induce crop damage. Solar radiation is the primary driver of crop production, but light intensity can also have negative effects, especially if concurrent with water stress and high temperature. Relative humidity also plays an important role by regulating transpiration and water balance of crops. In this review, the main effects of these abiotic stresses on crop performance are reported, and agronomic strategies used to avoid or mitigate the effects of these stresses are discussed.
Highlights
Abiotic stress is the result of the action of external environmental factors that affect growth, development, and reproduction of crops
Plants are insensitive to the absolute atmospheric water content expressed for example as mixing ratio or absolute humidity [4,48], while they are quite sensitive to relative humidity (RH) which at a given temperature is the water content of the atmosphere expressed as a percentage of the saturated water content, which is a constant at a given temperature
During the day lack of homogeneity is induced by differential solar heating of surfaces with different characteristics that trigger the establishment of stationary convective cells in the planetary boundary layer, while at night it is induced by differential radiative cooling with production of cold air pools that drain along the relief
Summary
Abiotic stress is the result of the action of external environmental factors that affect growth, development, and reproduction of crops. In the first part of this review published last year, we analyzed stressful conditions due to drought, water excess, salinity, and lodging [1] In this part, high-low values of solar radiation, temperature, and relative humidity will be considered as well as agronomic strategies that can be used for lowering the stressful conditions. A review of agronomic strategies aimed to optimize the resilience of crops exposed to abiotic stresses due to sub-optimal values of solar radiation, temperature, and relative humidity is presented. It is, necessary to remember that agronomic strategies hereafter presented and discussed can be adopted only if sustainable, socially and environmentally and economically. This is because agriculture is an economic activity that cannot be done without adequate remuneration of the production factors
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