• About
    • Which Energy Mix is this?
  • Climate News Network Archive
  • Contact
Celebrating our 1,000th edition. The climate news you need
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
No Result
View All Result
  FEATURED
BREAKING: UN Nature Summit, the ‘Paris Conference for Biodiversity’, Moves to Montreal in December June 19, 2022
‘LET’S SUE BIG OIL’: Legal Team Launches Class Action Campaign for B.C. Municipalities June 17, 2022
‘It Could Have Been Any of Us’, Colleague Says, After Brazil Confirms Murders of Bruno Pereira, Dom Phillips June 17, 2022
Infrastructure Gap a ‘Life and Death’ Matter as Northern Canada Warms June 17, 2022
Ban Fossil Fuel Ads Like Tobacco Promos, Doctors Urge Ottawa June 10, 2022
Next
Prev
Home Climate News Network

Climate brings hard times for tea

April 24, 2016
Reading time: 3 minutes
Primary Author: Tim Radford

Tea is of vital economic importance to millions of people in rural areas of countries such as China.

Tea is of vital economic importance to millions of people in rural areas of countries such as China.

 

Research in China shows that the changing monsoon pattern in East Asia and heavier rainfall is having a detrimental effect on the yield and quality of tea.

LONDON, 24 April, 2016 – Slow changes in the annual monsoon season may be reducing yields in one of the world’s most important crops – and gradually watering down the tea in China.

Scientists in the US have used a new approach to examine harvests of Camellia sinensis – the evergreen bush whose leaves and leaf buds are used to produce tea − in southern Yunnan and other regions of China, and have identified a decline that could only be linked to the retreat of the monsoon, along with greater levels of downpour.

That climate change in the form of greater extremes of heat and drought and flood will affect crop yields overall is well-established, but what matters to farmers is what gradual global warming and subtle shifts in seasonal weather patterns will bring to specific crops in traditional agricultural provinces.

For the moment, wine harvests in areas of France may have benefited from earlier springs and warmer summers, and the overall shift in average temperatures has brought new hope to the once-struggling English vineyards.

Economic importance

But tea – the most consumed beverage in the world, after water, and celebrated by the 18th-century English poet William Cowper as “the cups, that cheer but not inebriate” – is grown in 50 countries, but is of vital economic importance to 80 million rural people in China and at least three million in India.

Rebecca Boehm, PhD candidate at Tufts University’s Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy in the US, and colleagues report in Climate journal that rather than match annual production figures with the calendar dates of the east Asian monsoon onset, they looked at regional rainfall figures from 1980 to 2011 to decide precisely when the rainy season could be said to have begun and ended.

And their “yield response model” identified a set of incremental changes that each seemed to affect harvests.

“We hope that our approach will enable researchers
to more accurately assess how monsoon and
seasonal dynamics affect crop productivity”

A 1% increase in the date of the monsoon retreat could be linked to a reduction in yields of between 0.48% and 0.535%. An increase of 1%  in average daily rainfall could be associated with a drop in yield of 0.18% to 0.26%. And a drop of 1% in solar radiation the previous growing season could mean a 0.55 to 0.86% fall in yields.

Tea is not a simple crop. The buds form on the evergreen perennial bush, and growers and skilled workers have to decide when to pick to deliver the product with the best flavour.

Producers have to maintain quality, but tea in particular is an astonishing mix of flavonoids, caffeine, non-protein amino acids and other natural chemicals that vary according to growing conditions, but which have been linked to human health.

Management techniques

Epidemiological studies have associated tea-drinking to lower rates of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cognitive impairment, depressive symptoms and reduced incidence of cold and ’flu symptoms.

Boehm says: “If monsoon periods continue to be longer and produce heavier daily rainfalls that could reduce tea yield and quality, then there needs to be changes in management techniques, such as possibly planting tea varietals that are more tolerant of increased precipitation, or managing soil in ways to increase water-holding capacity.”

The methodology could be employed to examine yield changes in other places, and with other crops.

“We hope that our approach will enable researchers to more accurately assess how monsoon and seasonal dynamics affect crop productivity in tropical and subtropical regions globally,” Boehm adds. – Climate News Network



in Climate News Network

The latest climate news and analysis, direct to your inbox

Subscribe

Related Posts

stux / Pixabay
Air & Marine

Big Seven European Airlines Lag on Reducing Sky-High Emissions: Report

June 13, 2022
68
Ars Electronica/flickr
Solar

Unique ‘Smartflower’ Microgrid to Power Saskatchewan High School

June 13, 2022
150
http://midwestenergynews.com/2013/10/24/as-pipeline-concerns-mount-a-renewed-focus-on-the-great-lakes-enbridge-mackinac-line-5/
Pipelines / Rail Transport

Line 5 Closure Brings Negligible Rise in Gas Prices, Enbridge Consultant Finds

June 10, 2022
201

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Trending Stories

The federal government's Cliff Street Power Plant is at the centre of Ottawa's plans to reduce natural gas demand. Photo: PWGSC

EXCLUSIVE: Ontario Regulator Refuses New Pipeline, Tells Enbridge to Plan for Lower Gas Demand

May 30, 2022
5.1k
Ben_Kerckx/Pixabay

Plastics Cited as ‘Fossil Industry’s Plan B’ as Guilbeault Announces Partial Ban

June 24, 2022
197
zephylwer0/pixabay

North American Steel, Aluminium Giants Lumber Toward Green Transition

June 24, 2022
170
Jason Woodhead/Flickr

Trans Mountain Pipeline On Track to Lose $600 Million, Parliamentary Budget Officer Finds

June 24, 2022
314
Bruce Reeve/Flickr

Opinion: Ontario’s New ‘Carbon Tax’ Looks Like the One Doug Ford Fought

June 7, 2022
1.6k
Michael and Diane Weidner/Unsplash

Scientists, Politicians Debate Ethics of ‘Climate Tinkering’

June 7, 2022
74

Recent Posts

Erik Whalen/wikimedia commons

Yellowstone Park Reopens, But Flood Recovery Could Take Years, Cost Billions

June 24, 2022
73
TAFE SA TONSLEY/Flickr

Clean Energy Investment to Exceed $1.4T This Year, Still Falls Short of Climate Goals: IEA

June 24, 2022
95
Nemaska Lithium/Facebook

Critical Minerals, Hydrogen Lead Ottawa’s Low-Carbon Industry Strategy

June 24, 2022
79
Cjp24/Wikimedia Commons

UK Green Shift Won’t Repeat Job Destruction of Deindustrialization, Report Finds

June 24, 2022
37
/PxFul

Canadian Farmers Offer Ottawa a Roadmap to Cut Agriculture Emissions

June 24, 2022
95
Pavlofox/Pixabay

Millions Face Famine as Climate Disasters, Ukraine War Slash Food Supplies

June 24, 2022
51
Next Post
Chemicalinterest/wikimedia commons

Lithium Prices Soar as EVs, Stationary Storage Drive Spiking Demand

The Energy Mix

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Navigate Site

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy and Copyright
  • Cookie Policy

Follow Us

No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}