Manure amendment can reduce rice yield loss under extreme temperatures

Extreme temperatures are predicted to become increasingly common due to climate change, threatening the sustainability and profitability of global rice production. Manure amendment is a common agricultural practice to improve soil fertility and increase crop yields, but whether this practice modulates the effect of extreme temperatures on crop yield is unclear. Here we show through a series of experiments and meta-analysis that long-term manure amendment reduces losses of rice yield due to extreme temperatures. We propose that by increasing soil fertility, manure amendment increased net photosynthetic rate and plant physiological resistance to extreme temperatures. Without considering the impact of other global change factors, we estimate that manure amendment could potentially reduce global losses of rice yield due to extreme temperatures from 33.6 to 25.1%. Thus, our findings indicate that manure amendment may play a key role in improving food security in a changing climate.

Xiangcheng Zhu, Jin Chen, Shan Huang, Weiwei Li, Josep Penuelas, Ji Chen, Feng Zhou, Weijian Zhang, Ganghua Li, Zhenghui Liu, Yanfeng Ding, Songhan Wang, Kees Jan van Groenigen, Yu Jiang