Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Climate change and crop yields in the Indian Cardamom Hills, 1978–2007 CE

  • Published:
Climatic Change Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

In this study we analyzed climate and crop yields data from Indian cardamom hills for the period 1978–2007 to investigate whether there were significant changes in weather elements, and if such changes have had significant impact on the production of spices and plantation crops. Spatial and temporal variations in air temperatures (maximum and minimum), rainfall and relative humidity are evident across stations. The mean air temperature increased significantly during the last 30 years; the greatest increase and the largest significant upward trend was observed in the daily temperature. The highest increase in minimum temperature was registered for June (0.37°C/18 years) at the Myladumpara station. December and January showed greater warming across the stations. Rainfall during the main monsoon months (June–September) showed a downward trend. Relative humidity showed increasing and decreasing trends, respectively, at the cardamom and tea growing tracts. The warming trend coupled with frequent wet and dry spells during the summer is likely to have a favorable effect on insect pests and disease causing organisms thereby pesticide consumption can go up both during excess rainfall and drought years. The incidence of many minor pest insects and disease pathogens has increased in the recent years of our study along with warming. Significant and slight increases in the yield of small cardamom (Elettaria cardamomum M.) and coffee (Coffea arabica), respectively, were noticed in the recent years.; however the improvement of yield in tea (Thea sinensis) and black pepper (Piper nigrum L.) has not been seen in our analysis.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Basist A, Bell GD (1994) Statistical relationships between topography and precipitation patterns. J Clim 7:1305–1315

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Changnon SA, Winstanley D (2000) Long-term variations in seasonal weather conditions important to corn production in Illinois. Clim Change 47:353–372

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chmielewski FM, Müller A, Bruns E (2004) Climate changes and trends in phenology of fruit trees and field crops in Germany, 1961–2000. J Agric For Meteorol 121:69–78

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cleveland WS, Devlin SJ (1988) Locally weighted regression: an approach to regression analysis by local fitting. J Amer Stat Assoc 83:596–610

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • DaMatta FM, Cochicho JD, Ramalho G (2006) Impacts of drought and temperature stress on coffee physiology and production: a review. Braz J Plant Physiol 18(1):55–81. doi:10.1590/S1677-04202006000100006

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Das PK (1995) The monsoons. National Book Trust of India, India, p 88

    Google Scholar 

  • Deutsch CA, Tewksbury JJ, Huey RB, Sheldon KS, Ghalambor CK, Haak CK, Martin PR (2008) Impacts of climate warming on terrestrial ectotherms across latitude. Proc Nat Acad Sci 105(18):6668–6672. doi:10.1073/pnas.0709472105

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Easterling DR, Horton B, Jones PD, Peterson TC, Karl TR, Parker DE, Salinger MJ, Razuvayev R, Plummer N, Jamason P, Folland CK (1997) Maximum and minimum temperature trends for the globe. Science 277(5324):364–367. doi:10.1126/science.277.5324.364

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ewart F, Rounsevell MD, Reginster I, Metzger MJ, Leemans R (2005) Future scenarios of European agricultural land use I. Estimating changes in crop productivity. Agric Ecosyst Environ 107:101–116. doi:10.1016/j.agee.2004.12.003

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Forster PMF, Solomon S (2003) Observations of a “weekend effect” in diurnal temperature range. Proc Natl Aca Sci 100(20):11225–11230. doi:10.1073/pnas.2034034100

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Helsel DR, Hirsch RM (1992) Statistical methods in water resources. Elsevier, Amsterdam, p 522

    Google Scholar 

  • Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) (2001) Climate change 2001: the scientific basis. In: Houghton JT, Ding Y, Griggs DJ, Noguer M, van der Linden PJ, Dai X, Maskell K, Johnson CA (eds) Contribution of working group I to the third assessment report of the Intergovernmental panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Intergovernmental panel on Climate Change (IPCC) (2007) Climate change: impacts, adaptation and vulnerability, contribution of WG II to the third assessment report of the intergovernmental panel on climate change. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Joseph PV, Eischeid JK, Pyle RJ (1994) Interannual variability of the onset of the Indian monsoon and its association with atmospheric features, El Nino, and sea surface temperature anomalies. J Amer Meteor Soc 81–105

  • Krishnamurthy TN (1985) Summer monsoon experiment—a review. Mon Weather Rev 113:1590–1626

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lobell DB, Asner GP (2003) Climate and management contribution to recent trends in agricultural yields. Science 299:1032

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lobell DB, Field CB (2007) Global scale climate crop yield relationships and the impacts of recent warming. Environ Res Lett 2:014002. doi:10:1088/1748–9326/2/1/014002

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Long SP, Ainsworth EA, Leakey ADB, Morgan PB (2005) Global food security. Treatment of major food crops with elevated carbon dioxide or ozone under large scale fully open air conditions suggests recent models may have overestimated future yields. Phil Trans R Soc B 360:2011–2020. doi:10.1098/rstb.2005.1749

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McMichael AJ (2001) Impact of climatic and other environmental changes on food production and population health in the coming decades. Proc Nut Soc 60:195–201

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Monteith JL (1981) Presidential address to the royal meteorological society. Q J R Meteorol Soc 107:749–774. doi:10.1256/smsqj.45401

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Murugan M, Miniraj N, Carmelrani J (2000) Changes in climatic elements and their impact on production of cardamom (Elettaria cardamomum M.) in the cardamom hill reserves of Idukki district, Kerala. J Spices Aromatic Crops 9(2):157–160

    Google Scholar 

  • Murugan M, Backiyarani S, Josephrajkumar A, Hiremath MB, Shetty PK (2007) Yield of small cardamom (Elettaria cardamomum M) variety PV1 as influenced by levels of nutrients and neem cake under rain fed condition in southern Western Ghats, India. Caspian J Environ Sci 5(2):19–25

    Google Scholar 

  • Murugan M, Shetty PK, Raju R, Subbiah A (2009) The physiological ecology of cardamom (Elettaria cardamomum L) in cardamom agroforestry system. Intl J Environ Res 3(1):35–44

    Google Scholar 

  • Parry ML, Rosenzweig C, Iglesias A, Livermore M, Fischer G (2004) Effects of climate change on global food production under SRES emission and socio-economic scenarios. Glob Environ Change 14:53–67

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Peng S, Huang J, Sheehy JE, Lasa RC, Visperas RM, Zhong X, Centino GS, Cassman KG (2004) Rice yields decline with higher night temperature from global warming. Proc Natl Acad Sci 101(27):9971–9975

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pielke RA (2005) Consensus about climate change? Science 308:952–953

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Porter JR, Semenov MA (2005) Crop responses to climate variation. Phil Trans R Soc B 360:2021–2035. doi:10.1098/rstb.2005.1752

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rosenzweig C, Iglisias A, Yang XB, Epstein, PR, Chivian C (2001) Climate change and extreme weather events—implications for food production, plant diseases, and pests. Glo Change Hum Health 2(2):90–104

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Salinger MJ (2005) Climate variability and change: past, present and future—an overview. Clim Change 70:9–29

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sen PK (1968) Estimate of the regression co-efficient based on Kendall’s tau. Journal American Statistical Association 63:1373–1389

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stireman JO, Dyer LA, Janzen DH, Singer MS, Lill JT, Marquis RJ, Ricklefs RE, Gentry GL, Hallwachs W, Coley PD, Parone JA, Greeney HF, Connahs H, Barbsa P, Morais HC, Diniz IR (2005) Climatic unpredictability and parasitism of caterpillars: implications of global warming. Proc Natl Acad Sci 102(48):17384–17387. doi:10.1017/pnas.0508839102

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tao F, Xiong W, Xu Y, Lin Y (2000) Simulation of peanut potential yield under future climate scenario in China. Chin Environ Sci 20:392–395

    Google Scholar 

  • Tao F, Yokozava M, Zhang Z, Hayashi Y, Grassl H, Fu C (2004) Climatological and agricultural production variability in China in association with east Asia monsoon and El Niño Southern Oscillation. Clim Res 28:23–30

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tao F, Yokozawa M, Xu Y, Hayashi Y, Zhang Z (2006) Climate changes and trends in phenology and yields of field crops in China, 1981–2000. J Agric For Meteorol 138:82–92

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Thiel H (1950) A rank variant-method of linear and polynomial regression analysis, part III. In: Proceedings of Koninalijke Nederlanse Akademie van Weinenschapten A. vol. 53, pp 1397–1412

  • Thompson LM (1986) Climate change, weather variability, and corn production. Agron J 78:649–653

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Thompson LM (1975) Weather variability, climatic change, and grain production Science 188:535–541

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Whiteman D (2000) Mountain meteorology. Oxford University Press, UK

    Google Scholar 

  • Yue S, Pilon PJ, Phinney B, Cavadias G (2002) Patterns of trend in Canadian streamflow. In: Proceedings of the 58th annual eastern snow conference. CGU, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, May 14–17

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Natural Sciences and Engineering, National Institute of Advanced Studies, Indian Institute of Science campus, Bangalore, 560 012, India

    Muthusamy Murugan & Paddu Krishnappa Shetty

  2. Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, 560012, India

    Raju Ravi & Aavudai Anandhi

  3. Central Plantation Crops Research Institute, Kayangulam, 690533, India

    Arulappan Joseph Rajkumar

Authors
  1. Muthusamy Murugan
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Paddu Krishnappa Shetty
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Raju Ravi
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Aavudai Anandhi
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Arulappan Joseph Rajkumar
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Muthusamy Murugan.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Murugan, M., Shetty, P.K., Ravi, R. et al. Climate change and crop yields in the Indian Cardamom Hills, 1978–2007 CE. Climatic Change 110, 737–753 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-011-0115-8

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-011-0115-8

Keywords

Search

Navigation