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Enhancing soil quality makes crop production more resilient to climate change

A study involving over 12,000 observations shows that high-quality cropland soils not only lead to a higher yield, but also to a smaller yield reduction and variability in response to warmer climates. Appropriate efforts to improve soil quality may reduce the decline in crop production induced by climate change in China by 20%.

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Fig. 1: Schematic representation of the ability of soil quality (SQ) to moderate the resilience of crop yield to climate variability and change.

References

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This is a summary of: Qiao, L. et al. Soil quality both increases crop production and improves resilience to climate change. Nat. Clim. Change https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-022-01376-8 (2022).

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Enhancing soil quality makes crop production more resilient to climate change. Nat. Clim. Chang. 12, 516–517 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-022-01387-5

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