Steaming hot rice, lasagna, pasta with veggies, rotis, burritos, steamed dumplings – yummy food piled up on your table enough to fill your stomachs. As we tuck in, we ought to remember the farmers who have toiled day after day to cultivate the plants which were used to make these delicious food.
They face many difficulties in ensuring a good crop yield and it is definitely not an easy task battling against nature’s fury, man made issues like pollution etc. This article, a bit different from the rest of the blog, aims to highlight some of the issues that a farmer faces in his field and as the title goes, look into the stressful life of plants. One day, when some of you young children decide to choose a career in these areas, you can help think of novel solutions to help the poor farmer.
Stress in plants can be broadly classified into 2 types – Abiotic and Biotic
Abiotic stress – caused by non-living factors
Water stress:
The first thing that hits your mind when we talk of problems in the field would be a drought like condition. Insufficient water supply due to erratic rains, water drain off due to soil wash away and less vegetation, has wreaked havoc on many fields and destroyed many crops.
While water deficiency causes damage to crops, an oversupply of the same as cyclones and floods also devastate crops. The roots of most crop plants (other than rice) do not have the ability to survive in submerged conditions of the soil. This is something you may have witnessed when you overwater your potted plants as well.
Soil and water pollution:
This is a complex problem on the field which is a result of many factors including overuse of chemicals, contamination by electronic waste, heavy metals etc. Pesticides and weedicides are used widely by farmers to reduce the pest infestation and occurrence of weeds on the field. These contaminate the soil and water resources extensively and due to overusage by farmers pose a huge health threat to consumers.
Salinity:
Excess salt content in the soil due to various reasons cause stress to the plant both due to nonspecific osmotic imbalance resulting in a deficit of water as well as the specific toxic effects of the ions which cause the salt imbalance thereby affecting the absorption of nutrients. The excess salt in the soil also affect the permeability and porosity of the soil complicating the problem further.
Temperature stress:
Plants have a narrow temperature range within which they grow optimally. Outside this range extremes of temperature both hot as in arid zones as well as freezing temperatures inflict considerable damage on the plants and their productivity.
Nutrient deficiency:
Deficiency of macro and micronutrients in the soil affect the plant significantly and have a direct impact on its growth, development and produce. The nutritional status of the plant and its edible parts pose a health risk to the consumers as well.
Biotic Stress – caused by living organisms.
These are the infestations by organisms like bacteria, fungi, insects like locusts etc, viruses and also weeds. They cause huge damage to agriculture both in the pre- and post- harvest stage.
However, research in the field of agriculture have provided hope to the poor farmers toiling in the sun by means of interventions which can help combat these stresses and save the crops from damage.
Now that you know what troubles the farmer takes to get that food on our table, it is time for all of us to appreciate it better and strive not to waste it and eat healthy.
To read more:
http://www.jnkvv.org/PDF/04042020191500Biotic%20stress.pdf
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/agricultural-and-biological-sciences/biotic-stress
