How Are Pecans Being Affected By Climate Change?

How are pecans affected by climate change? A research team from The University of Texas at El Paso aims to find out, starting with the region’s pecan farms.

The research is supported by a grant of nearly $250,000 from the National Science Foundation and led by Hugo Gutierrez-Jurado, Ph.D., Associate Professor in UTEP’s Department of Earth, Environmental and Resource Sciences.

“Climate change is increasing the frequency and severity of extreme weather events, which are already having a profound impact on the crops in large agricultural areas across the country’s arid regions,” says Gutierrez-Jurado. “We are seeing decreases in crop productivity due to plant stress from excessive dry and warm conditions.”

Pecans are one of the most economically significant crops for communities across the Chihuahuan Desert region on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border, Gutierrez-Jurado adds.

The UTEP study will look at how drought, heat waves, and soil impact the cycle of water and carbon between plants and the atmosphere in dryland agricultural ecosystems. It will focus on two orchards, one in the El Paso area and another in the Conchos River basin near the city of Delicias in the Mexican state of Chihuahua.

The research team will monitor tree and root system growth, soil-plant water status, and canopy temperature. Their goal is to develop a detailed understanding of how soil structure and management practices can either mitigate or exacerbate the stress that plants experience during extreme weather events. Additionally, the project will explore how these stressors affect the ability of crops to sequester, or capture and store, carbon dioxide, a critical factor in addressing climate change.

“This is a new way of looking at this problem,” Gutierrez-Jurado says. “There has been a lot of research into how to make pecans and other crops more productive through input control, especially irrigation levels, but much of that work has failed to take into account the changes that trees and plants experience as a result of climate-related stress.”

The goal of the study is to uncover valuable insights for farmers and policymakers on how to improve water use efficiency and enhance carbon sequestration in agro-ecosystems.

For more, continue reading at utep.edu/news.