Possible Effects of Climate Change on Weeds in Agriculture

Abstract

In recent years, activities such as rapid population growth, industrialization, urbanization and unconscious consumption of natural sources, have many negative effects on natural balance. As a result of these negativities, environmental problems arise. Global warming is one of the environmental problems faced today. Global warming can be defined as, the process of overheating of the Earth more than it should be due to greenhouse gases, such as H₂O (water vapor), CO₂ (carbon dioxide) and CH₄ (methane), slight prevention of sunlight reflecting from the Earth to the space. It is inevitable that, the rise of CO₂ concentration due to the global warming and the changes in the precipitation regime and amount because of the heat will affect plants as a whole. As a matter of fact, different researchers presented that the climate change and increase in CO₂ concentration cause alteration in plant growth, the rise in carbon dioxide affect the progress of cultivated plants in a positive way whereas, the rise in the heat and ozone affect the progress in a negative way. As a result of global warming, it can be thought that increasing CO₂ amount will increase crop production in general. However, the existence of weeds, which cause serious losses in productivity and quality, refute this opinion. The genetic variability of the weeds, which are constantly competing against cultivated plants in terms of light and place, is quite rich when compared with cultivated plants. Therefore, they can adapt to any changes that occur in the environment. Ultimately, cultivated plants would be affected more by the differences caused by global warming. Moreover, as a result of climate change, the decrease in the event of herbicide activity, an effective weapon against the weeds, will make weeds much bigger matter.