TY - JOUR

T1 - Functional phenomics for improved climate resilience in Nordic agriculture

AU - Roitsch, Thomas

AU - Himanen, Kristiina

AU - Chawade, Aakash

AU - Jaakola, Laura

AU - Nehe, Ajit

AU - Alexandersson, Erik

N1 - © The Author(s) 2022. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Experimental Biology.

PY - 2022

Y1 - 2022

N2 - The five Nordic countries span the most northern region for field cultivation in the world. This presents challenges per se with short growing seasons, long days and a need for frost tolerance. Climate change has additionally increased risks for micro-droughts and water logging as well as pathogens and pests expanding northwards. Thus, Nordic agriculture demands crops that are adapted to the special Nordic growth conditions and future climate scenarios. A focus on crop varieties and traits important to Nordic agriculture, including the unique resource of nutritious wild crops, can meet these needs. In fact, with a future longer growing season due to climate change the region could contribute proportionally more to the global agricultural production. This also applies to other northern regions, including the Arctic. To address current growth conditions, mitigate impacts of climate change and meet market demands, the adaptive capacity of crops that both perform well in northern latitudes and are more climate resilient has to be increased, and better crop management systems be built. This requires functional phenomics approaches that integrate versatile high-throughput phenotyping, physiology and bioinformatics. This review stresses key target traits, the opportunities of latitudinal studies and infrastructure needs for phenotyping to support Nordic agriculture.

AB - The five Nordic countries span the most northern region for field cultivation in the world. This presents challenges per se with short growing seasons, long days and a need for frost tolerance. Climate change has additionally increased risks for micro-droughts and water logging as well as pathogens and pests expanding northwards. Thus, Nordic agriculture demands crops that are adapted to the special Nordic growth conditions and future climate scenarios. A focus on crop varieties and traits important to Nordic agriculture, including the unique resource of nutritious wild crops, can meet these needs. In fact, with a future longer growing season due to climate change the region could contribute proportionally more to the global agricultural production. This also applies to other northern regions, including the Arctic. To address current growth conditions, mitigate impacts of climate change and meet market demands, the adaptive capacity of crops that both perform well in northern latitudes and are more climate resilient has to be increased, and better crop management systems be built. This requires functional phenomics approaches that integrate versatile high-throughput phenotyping, physiology and bioinformatics. This review stresses key target traits, the opportunities of latitudinal studies and infrastructure needs for phenotyping to support Nordic agriculture.

U2 - 10.1093/jxb/erac246

DO - 10.1093/jxb/erac246

M3 - Journal article

C2 - 35727101

VL - 73

SP - 5111

EP - 5127

JO - Journal of Experimental Botany

JF - Journal of Experimental Botany

SN - 0022-0957

IS - 15

M1 - erac246

ER -