Global Synthesis of Drought Effects on Maize and Wheat Production

By S. Daryanto, Lixin Wang, P. Jacinthe. PLoS ONE, 2016

868 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Drought has been a major cause of agricultural disaster, yet how it affects the vulnerability of maize and wheat production in combination with several co-varying factors (i.e., phenological phases, agro-climatic regions, soil texture) remains unclear. Using a data synthesis approach, this study aims to better characterize the effects of those co-varying factors with drought and to provide critical information on minimizing yield loss. We collected data from peer-reviewed publications between 1980 and 2015 which examined maize and wheat yield responses to drought using field experiments. We performed unweighted analysis using the log response ratio to calculate the bootstrapped confidence limits of yield responses and calculated drought sensitivities with regards to those co-varying factors. Our results showed that yield reduction varied with species, with wheat having lower yield reduction (20.6%) compared to maize (39.3%) at approximately 40% water reduction. Maize was also more sensitive to drought than wheat, particularly during reproductive phase and equally sensitive in the dryland and non-dryland regions. While no yield difference was observed among regions or different soil texture, wheat cultivation in the dryland was more prone to yield loss than in the non-dryland region. Informed by these results, we discuss potential causes and possible approaches that may minimize drought impacts.

Subfields: Agronomy and Crop Science, Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics, Plant Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/2f554754eb1dede433986baa7ee931585778ec5a

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Agronomy and Crop Science

1. Shah Saud
2. Jianliang Huang
3. A. Bajwa
4. Chao Wu
5. Shah Fahad
6. O. Babalola

In Plant Science

1. O. Ojuederie
2. O. S. Olanrewaju
3. Shah Saud
4. Shahid Ali
5. Jianliang Huang
6. A. Iqbal
7. A. Bajwa
8. S. Anjum

Citations in the corpus

• Implications of Abscisic Acid in the Drought Stress Tolerance of Plants (2020, background): “Adverse environmental conditions, such as abiotic (salinity, extreme temperature, drought, nutrient deficiency, and heavy metals) and biotic stresses (pathogen infection and herbivore insects) severely affect plant growth, productivity, and food security [8,9].”
• Crop Production under Drought and Heat Stress: Plant Responses and Management Options (2017, background): “), respectively due to drought on a global scale (Daryanto et al., 2016).”
• Abiotic Stress in Plants; Stress Perception to Molecular Response and Role of Biotechnological Tools in Stress Resistance (2021, background): “A study mentioning analyses of data published between 1980 and 2015 on a global scale suggested 21% and 40% yield reductions in wheat and maize, respectively, due to drought [18].”
• Plant Growth Promoting Rhizobacterial Mitigation of Drought Stress in Crop Plants: Implications for Sustainable Agriculture (2019, background): “Highly positive correlations were also observed between yield and reproductive traits of maize under drought stress, indicating a high sensitivity to water stress compared to wheat [26,28,29].”
• Heat and Drought Stresses in Crops and Approaches for Their Mitigation (2018, background): “Reduction in yield by as much as 40% was observed for maize and 21% for wheat at approximately a 40% water reduction (Daryanto et al., 2016).”