Pollination is at the heart of a plant’s reproductive system, but climate change and rising heat are wreaking havoc on the process, according to FERN’s latest story by Carolyn Beans, produced in collaboration with Yale Environment 360. “One point is becoming alarmingly clear to scientists: heat is a pollen killer. Even with adequate water, heat can damage pollen and prevent fertilization in canola and many other crops, including corn, peanuts, and rice,” Beans writes.
“Many growers aim for crops to bloom before the temperature rises. But as climate change increases the number of days over 90 degrees in regions across the globe, and multi-day stretches of extreme heat become more common, getting that timing right could become challenging, if not impossible.”
The story notes that fertilization is notoriously heat-sensitive in many cultivars of tomato. If the weather gets too hot, says Randall Patterson, president of the North Carolina Tomato Growers Association, “the pollen will burn up.” Patterson times his tomato plantings to flower during the longest stretch of nights below 70 degrees and days below 90. Typically, he has a three-to-five-week window in which the weather cooperates for each of his two annual growing seasons. “If it does get hotter, and if we do have more nights over 70 degrees,” he says, “that’s going to close our window.”
Researchers are now working to understand the process and to breed cultivars with more heat-resistant pollen, the story says. To see the full story, read it here on FERN on at Yale Environment 360.