The physiology of crop yield, 2nd edn

Abstract

This book contains 10 chapters, dealing with the physiological processes determining the yield that can be harvested from a stand of crop plants, whether grown for food, feed or for industry. Chapter 2 reviews the approaches to charting and quantifying phenology, and other aspects of development, providing powerful tools for the interpretation of crop yield; for screening new cultivars; and for the construction of predictive models. Chapters 3-6 complete the analysis of crops where yield is limited by the interception of solar radiation, a common situation in intensive temperate agriculture. In chapter 7, the approach adopted for crop yields limited by radiation (resolution into resource capture, resource use, and dry matter partitioning) is applied to water and nitrogen. In chapter 8, the physiological aspects of crop quality are considered, including the widely observed inverse relationship between quality and yield. Chapter 9 presents the theory and practice of crop modelling, describing in detail 3 widely-used models of wheat, maize and soyabean. Chapter 10 highlights the challenges crop physiologists may have to face in coming decades, which include the consequences of lowering inputs to improve nutrient and other resource efficiencies; the effects of climatic change and climatic variability on crop yields; the nutritional, technological and environmental quality of products; and the development of new crops for non-food products such as biomass energy and biopolymers.