India is having varied climate which affects not only the farmers but also the agriculture scientists to be alert and find out the ways and means to counter the effects of the climate change and comes out with the solutions in the adverse situations. Accordingly a research facility with elevated temperature conditions in the free air temperature elevation system was established in the Hayatnagar, Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh.
Dr. Trilochan Mohapatra, Secretary (DARE) & Director General (ICAR) inaugurated the Climate Change Research Complex at Hayatnagar Research Farm, ICAR-CRIDA. The complex houses three major state-of-the-art facilities viz., Free Air Temperature Elevation (FATE) system, Carbon dioxide and Temperature Gradient Chambers (CTGC) and Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) based Automatic Rainfall Simulator and Lysimeter.
The Free Air Temperature Elevation (FATE) system is a research facility with elevated temperature conditions over ambient and intended to conduct various experiments controlling other parameters such as CO2 enrichment and moisture deficit stress in intact ecosystems. The facility creates artificially induced high temperature through arrays of infrared heaters in open field conditions with uniformity of the thermal radiation and canopy temperature across the plot.
CTGC is a CO2 Temperature Gradient Chamber, a facility designed for measuring the impacts of elevated CO2 and temperature which are vital parameters of climate change. The chamber is with field like environment with higher CO2 and warming conditions concurrently which influence the crop growth and insect pests. This facility simulates the future climate change scenario conditions with both CO2 enrichment and warming conditions.
SCADA based Rainfall Simulation Facility and Precision type Lysimeters with open top climate chambers for studying the Climate Change Impacts on Resource losses and Soil water balance. This can be used for quantification of runoff and soil erosion losses due to different levels of rainfall intensity and data generated can be used for modeling prediction in different climate change scenarios.
Dr. Mohapatra was accompanied by Dr. S. Bhaskar, ADG (AAF&CC), Dr. K. Sammi Reddy, Director (Actg.), ICAR-CRIDA.
The event was graced by Dr. B. Venkateswarlu, VC, VNMKV, Parbhani; Dr. V. Praveen Rao, VC, PJTSAU, Hyderabad; Dr. Y.S Ramakrishna, Former Director, CRIDA, and Member, NICRA Expert Committee and Directors of local ICAR institutes in Hyderabad.
Chander Mohan
Krishi Jagran/New Delhi
