Crop-Weather modeling: A review of evolutionary trend of methodology

The weather factors (rainfall, temperature, soil moisture, snowfall and so on) like other inputs such as land, labor HYVs seeds, irrigation, fertilizers, pesticides etc. are also a direct input in crop production. Moreover, in a state of backward agriculture where the technological adoption and diffusion is very slow or near nil, the weather factors count more than other inputs because of their direct and indirect effects. Again understanding the precise link between weather and crop yield could have some implications for the effects of climate change on food supply and crop management policies. So it can facilitate some kind of institutions that can secure the crops from the vagaries of monsoon. Thus, the study of crop-weather relation is of immense help to the policy makers, agricultural scientists, agricultural economists and meteorologists alike. The present study here attempts to review the works done both in India and abroad which brought an evolutionary trend in weather-crop modeling. The objectives of study are: (i) to bring out the evolutionary trend that the weather-crop analysis has gone through in evolving itself into a more fine-tuned and sophisticated area of research which gradually makes it more close to reality and (ii) to point out some loopholes that are still existing in past studies.