Significant Shift of Ambient Night-Time Air Temperature during Rice Growing Season in Major US Rice States

Abstract

Heat stress studies in rice (Oryza sativa sp.) under extreme weather scenarios generally use constant temperatures to influence the crop responses without relation to actual weather changes. These heat stress studies may have limited implications for future crop yields because elevated temperatures are not based on local temperature fluctuations. This study investigated the night-time air temperature pattern and assessed the status and reliability of available weather station data in four major rice growing states; Arkansas (AR), California (CA), Louisiana (LA) and Texas (TX) using four public weather station databases. Hourly and daily night-time air temperature from 20:00 to 06:00 were obtained from 1940 to 2018 during the rice growing period. During the 67-year period, a significant increase of 1.12˚C and 0.53˚C in seasonal night air temperature occurred in CA and AR (P ≤ 0.001) while LA and TX showed minimal to no increase in night air ...