Changing temperatures are helping corn production in U.S. — for now

Friday, November 9, 2018 - 00:20 in Earth & Climate

The past 70 years have been good for corn production in the Midwestern U.S., with yields increasing fivefold since the 1940s. Much of this improvement has been credited to advances in farming technology, but researchers at Harvard University are asking if changes in climate and local temperature may be playing a bigger role than previously thought. In a new paper, researchers found that a prolonged growing season due to warmer temperatures, combined with the natural cooling effects of large fields of plants, have had a major contribution to improved corn production in the U.S. “Our research shows that improvements in crop yield depend, in part, on improvements in climate,” said Peter Huybers, professor of Earth and planetary sciences in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences (EPS) and of environmental science and engineering at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS). “In this case, changing temperatures have...

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