Understanding the Impact of Heat Stress
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Three Things Every Farmer Needs to Know About Heat Stress
Heat stress, also known as heat blast, has become a reoccurring challenge for Canadian farmers, especially in Western Canada. The persistence of extremely hot summers and severe heat events has become a significant concern, prompting farmers to seek new strategies to mitigate the detrimental impact of heat stress and protect crop yields and quality, especially in canola.
Canola is traditionally a cool-season crop that thrives in the typical growing conditions of the Canadian Prairies, characterized by warm-hot summer days and cool nights. Continuous hot, dry conditions cause plant stress, which can ultimately damage crops and decrease yield, especially during critical growth stages.
Here are three things you need to know about heat stress:
1. What is heat stress?
Heat stress refers to the damaging effects of prolonged exposure to excessively high temperatures. This environmental stressor can slow photosynthesis, as the plant closes its stomata to conserve moisture.
Heat stress occurs when a combination of hot days (28°C or warmer) and warm nights (16°C or warmer) occurs. Canola typically relies on cooler nights to recover from the daytime heat. When temperatures remain high at night, this essential recovery period is eliminated, placing significant stress on the crop.
2. How heat stress affects crop production
Heat stress is particularly detrimental to canola, especially during flowering and pollination stages of growth. Elevated temperatures that induce heat stress in canola can lead to a degradation of Cytokinin, a growth hormone that is crucial for cell division and differentiation. This degradation often results in flower abortion, or flower drop and pod loss, which can severely impact yield and lead to significant reductions in crop production
In addition to the potential degradation of Cytokinin, hot, dry conditions also significantly reduce nutrient uptake and hider plant growth by impairing root function and limiting the plant’s ability to absorb essential nutrients.
3. Heat stress can be managed
Heat stress may be unavoidable, but Biological products can offer new solutions to help mitigate the impact of hot, dry weather conditions to keep canola crops performing and productive.
X-Cyte™ is designed to increase plant resilience and safeguard yield by proactively protecting crops from heat stress. When applied before the onset of a heat event, X-Cyte can help correct Cytokinin imbalance within the plant during periods of excess heat by supplementing the plant with additional Cytokinin – boosting cell growth, improving photosynthesis, and preventing plant tissues from maturing too quickly. As a result, the plants sustain photosynthetic activity and maintain nutrient and water uptake for continued plant growth and optimized yield potential.
As a result, the plants sustain photosynthetic activity and maintain nutrient and water uptake for continued plant growth and optimized yield potential.
Want to learn more about how to manage heat stress in canola with Biological solutions? Contact a Biological Innovation Manager today.
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