Maps

Rice feels the heat

by Alice Laborte, Andrew Nelson, Krishna Jagadish, Jorrel Aunario, Adam Sparks, Changrong Ye, and Ed Redoa

Heat waves are expected to be more intense and frequent in the future, which could jeopardize more rice areas.
ice thrives in hot and dry to humid climates. However, extreme heat episodes can irreversibly damage rice yield, grain quality, and plant processes such as germination and fertilization. Rice is highly susceptible to heat stress, particularly during the reproductive and ripening stages. Extremely high temperatures, even for a few hours, during flowering can cause complete sterility, while high temperatures during ripening can lead to reduced grain filling and poor milling quality (i.e., more broken grains). And, in combination with other constraints such as lack of water, canopy temperatures can increase even further. Unfortunately, hot days and warmer nights have increased recently. Higher nighttime temperatures, in particular, have reduced rice yieldsby as much as 10% for every 1 oC increase in minimum temperature.1 In 2003, heat stress affected about 3 million hectares of rice, resulting in losses of 5.18 million tons in the Yangtze River Valley in China.2 In 2010, extreme nighttime air temperatures adversely

affected the milling quality of rice grown in Arkansas in the U.S.3 Changing cropping systems and management are strategies to meet the increasing demand for rice in areas prone to heat stress. This means that farmers may need to adjust planting dates, change crop rotations, and use varieties with shorter maturity to avoid hightemperature periods. Researchers

therefore seek to introduce new rice varieties with improved heat tolerance. To identify hotspots for daytime and nighttime heat stress, we compared daily maximum and minimum temperatures during critical rice growth stages from 1983 to 20114 against temperature thresholds obtained from published literature (Fig. 1).
Maximum temperature > 35 C for 10 days during the period

Daytime heat stress Nighttime heat stress

Minimum temperature > 25 C for 15 days during the period

Fig. 1. Temperature thresholds at critical growth stages of rice.

Peng S, Huang J, Sheehy JE, Laza RC, Visperas RM, Zhong X, Centeno GS, Khush GS, Cassman KG. 2004. Rice yields decline with higher night temperature from global warming. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 101:9971-9975. 2 Tian X, Luo H, Zhou H, Wu C. 2009. Research on heat stress of rice in China: progress and prospect. Chin. Agric. Sci. Bull. 25:166-168. 3 Lanning SB, Siebenmorgen TJ, Counce PA, Ambardekar AA, Mauromoustakos A. 2011. Extreme nighttime air temperatures in 2010 impact rice chalkiness and milling quality. Field Crops Res. 124:132136. 4 Daily temperature from NASA Prediction of Worldwide Energy Resource (POWER, http://power.larc.nasa.gov/) corrected using station data (Sparks A, unpublished data).

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Rice Today July-September 2012

Fig. 2. Hotspots of heat stress on rice and frequency of occurrence: daytime (top) and nighttime (bottom).

Our preliminary analysis shows that many rice areas in mainland Asia and parts of western Africa have been experiencing frequent heat stress events over the past three decades (Fig. 2).

Spatial assessments of rice areas that are vulnerable to heat stress are important for planning and targeting appropriate adaptation and mitigation strategies to ensure food security.

Dr. Laborte, Dr. Sparks, and Dr. Ye are postdoctoral fellows; Dr. Jagadish is a plant pathologist; Mr. Aunario is a specialist on geospatial programming; and Dr. Redoa is a plant breeder, all working at IRRI.

Rice Today July-September 2012

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