Nutritional Stress Management in Vegetable Crops Under Changing Climate Scenario

Abstract

Climate change impacts the yield reduction, decreased quality and sometimes entire crop failure and thus render reduced interest of farmers. Deficiency of nutrients along with impact of climate change in vegetable seedlings are also common in vegetable based production systems. Large scale occurrence of multi-nutrient deficiencies leads to reduction in yield. Judicious nutrient application through soil test based fertilizer recommendation in vegetables could reduce the possibility of yield loss caused by climatic aberrations as some nutrient elements have established effects on drought tolerance. The importance of maintaining soil fertility and nutrient management is becoming more widely understood, especially in developing countries where there is a high population pressure on the land. The hopes of humanity to successfully overcome the challenges of food shortage have undoubtedly been brightened by the intensive fertilizer use, intensive cropping and high-yielding varieties, but at the same time they have also given rise to numerous problems associated with soil fertility, fertilizer use, and soil and water management. The food and nutritional security should warrant availability of adequate and quality food to people to meet their dietary and nutritional needs for a healthy and productive life. Vegetable crops being short term grown and potential high yields, have high demand for added nutrients to maintain the quality of the produce. Managing nutrients for these short term grown vegetable crops under changing climatic conditions needs special cares to be taken for efficient crop production. For instance, nitrogen being a highly mobile nutrient needs its judicious application during unprecedented high rainfall. Another example is potassium, a costly fertilizer element which could enhance the drought tolerance in crops under current days climatic changes, needs its judicious application through soil test based fertilizer application. The ability of a soil to supply nutrients is a measurement of its fertility, and how fully it is expressed, depends on the impact of the plants that are cultivated there, the surrounding environment, and soil management.