Recent identification of two agrometeorological services in Jiangxi province, southern China

By KEES STIGTER

You can plant a golden lotus in the fire
and accumulate the five elements to use as you please.
Once achieved, you can be a Buddha or an immortal

From Zhang Wei’s “The ancient ship”

RECENT IDENTIFICATION OF TWO AGROMETEOROLOGICAL SERVICES IN JIANGXI PROVINCE, SOUTHERN CHINA

Kees Stigter1), Xie Yuanyu 2), Liao Zhihui 3), Rao Qiusheng 4),

Li Yingchun5), Zheng Dawei6), Wang Shili7), Ma Yuping8),

1) Agromet Vision, Bondowoso, Indonesia & Bruchem, The Netherlands (cjstigter@usa.net)

2) Jiangxi Provincial Meteorological Administration, Nanchang, Jiangxi, China

3) Guanzhou County Fruit Department, Guangzhou, Jiangxi, China

4) Guangchang Sub-Provincial Meteorological Administration, Guangchang, Jiangxi, China

5) Jiangxi Provincial Meteorological Administration, Nanchang, Jiangxi, China

6) Department of Agrometeorology, China Agricultural University, Beijing, China (zhengdawei44@263.net)

7)Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences, China Meteorological Administration, Beijing, China (wangsl@cams.cma.gov.cn)

8) Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences, China Meteorological Administration, Beijing, China (mayp@cams.cma.gov.cn)

Introduction

The present project, core funded by the China Meteorological Administration (CMA), was prepared by the Asian Picnic Model Project (APMP, Agromet Vision) and China Agricultural University (CAU), Beijing, from 2004 till 2007 in several missions to five provinces. In the APMP, capacity building is the main issue and all preparations, all transfer of knowledge and all teaching takes initially place in the Asian country where the project is based. Approaches can be found in the literature quoted most recently in KNMI (2006, rev. 2008).

In early October 2008 we took the night train to Nanchang, Jiangxi Province, for twelve hours going southwards. Upon arrival Stigter lectured at the Jiangxi Provincial Meteorological Administration/Bureau /Office/Services, for a group with many colleagues we met earlier. It was here his third lecture in three years, this time on “Agrometeorological services in various parts of the world under conditions of a changing climate”, adapted from the lectures he gave earlier in Wulanhaote and Linhe.

Subsequently we departed for Guanzhou, more than 400 km further south, where we had a meeting the next morning on “CMA/CAU/APMP Agrometeorological Services Case Study V” (in short CCAAS Case Study V), with the title “Refined agro-climatic zoning used for planning of growing navel oranges, and protection advisory services after planting”. The target group is again clearly defined as the growers of navel oranges. We are talking about presently close to 6000 ha, yielding at least 65.000 tons of oranges, with possibilities till 80.000 tons. We also had a separate demonstration meeting in Longnan that afternoon.

Services rather often do not come single (Stigter, 2008a; 2008b). The part in the title on “protection advisory services after planting” was added after the emphasis put on these protection services in Guanzhou and Longnan and the morning of the following day in demonstrations in Xinfeng, where several protection stages were distinguished in the services after the basic mapping has been applied for planning purposes (Stigter, 2008c).

That same afternoon we continued to Guangchang for discussing the “CMA/CAU/APMP Agrometeorological Services Case Study VI” (in short CCAAS Case Study V) with the title “Demonstration and extension of relay intercropping of late rice into lotus, enhanced by climate change”. This is a small CMA project here.

Refined agro-climatic zoning used for planning of growing navel oranges, and protection advisory services after planting

In a climatic study, with a grid size of 1 ha, of Guanzhou County, the decision for areas being suitable or unsuitable for the growth of navel oranges was taken using the yardstick of degree days (over the base of ten degrees) of higher than 5500 over the whole year and a minimum winter temperature higher than -5 °C. This resulted in the actual unsuitability of all areas over 300 m. The this way determined “suitable area map” was fine tuned in very suitable, suitable and less suitable areas, using April to October sunshine hours and rainfall totals in average years.

This planning was then carried out by the County Department of Fruits, that operates parallel to the Department of Agriculture and advised farmers accordingly, using subsidies in areas deemed suitable.

There are this way three larger corridors identified in the north of the County that appeared suitable and a small area in the center-north of these areas that appeared very suitable. This planning exercise was an agrometeorological service from the Provincial Meteorological Bureau to the County government. In Stigter’s categorization of agrometeorological services, as for example used in his Souvenir Paper for a meeting in Hyderabad (Stigter, 2008a) and in his recent draft WMO brochure (Stigter, 2008b), this “CCAAS Case Study V” example should in first instance be seen as from the category “Agroclimatological characterization products, such as in zoning and mapping (A)”.

Another part of this case study are the advisory studies related to protection from bad weather and diseases. These days, weather forecasts and such advisory services are discussed daily on cable TV, to which all farmers can listen, while some also get SMS messages. The following recent examples were given.

- Jan./Febr. 2008 there was a serious cold storm, with much damage in the high lands and areas grown before planning was done, but little damage in the areas approved by planning. Binding and supporting branches was advised which gave gradual recovery.

- August/Sept. 2008 there was a drought in the important period of fruit expansion. So normally irrigation will be required. However, a nearby typhoon with much rain for the area was forecasted, so an advice was given not to irrigate. Heed was taken to this message and a lot of water and efforts was saved by not irrigating as advised.

In a separate meeting in Longnan, it was indicated by the leader of the township agriculture, that irrigation with impounded water, that can be seen available everywhere, is generally done as protection to cold (in dry weather) and to drought. Fire and related smoke can be used for protection from a forecasted late spring or early autumn frost (see also Wei, 2008). In rarer years with cold wet weather, actively shedding snow or knocking ice off branches and covering young trees with straw or using it at the base helps, but it occurs less because of the planning from the earlier discussed mapping. These are examples of vulnerabilities to hazards that can be seriously reduced by temporary or permanent measures leading to impact reduction (e.g. Rathore and Stigter, 2007).

Weather forecasts are also given if weather is too windy for spraying. For all operations, forecasts are given when adjustment from normal procedures is advisable. Protection for storage is also an important subject. It happens in the ground or with pine branches in layers. Later (in Xinfeng) we heard about “on the tree” storage for eight months, using early, normal and late varieties to make this possible. But there is risk and warnings for unusual colds are necessary.

In Xinfeng, the following protection stages were distinguished in the services after the basic mapping had been applied for planning purposes:

- late March/early April, if anticyclones are threatening to bring more than three days of drought, there is sprinkling or other irrigation applied to prevent too much flower dropping;

- during heavy summer drought, furrow irrigation must assist in useful fruit expansion although light drought can be beneficial;

- too heavy rain makes drainage with furrows necessary. This is especially important during maturing phases and warnings for rains are important at this stage;

- examples of winter protection have already been given above.

More attention is planned in the future for major diseases in the rainy season.

Here again communication channels of forecasts and warnings were discussed. Fruit Departments are intermediaries and have lists of farmers with their contacting information. They transform the weather information and messages into absorbable forms. Every township has extension/technician people, every village has farmer technicians. The second information channel are “Societies” for different crops such as oranges, which are loosely organized “interest groups”. The third information channel are the “Cooperatives” of farmers, that are official, legal structures, like companies, that can also sign official papers. An impressive training centre we also visited.

This “CCAAS Case study V” should therefore also be considered an example of the category “Measures reducing the impacts and mitigating the consequences of weather and climate related natural disasters (D)” and in some cases combined with ”Monitoring and early warning exercises directly connected to such already established measures (E)”. So again a multiple category example because of the way it was built up and carried out.

Lessons to be learned are again the multi-channel dissemination. After having heard so many examples now, it would be very helpful if studies were made into the efficiency of the information channels and the opinion of farmers on the services and these channels. And also on eventual alternatives or additions in services and information channels, in the ways suggested by the work of Stigter, Tan Ying et al., as presented in the CAgM workshop in New Delhi in 2006 (Stigter et al., 2007).

Demonstration and extension of relay intercropping of late rice into lotus, enhanced by climate change

Stigter (2008d) recently argued that the issue to attend to appears to be what multiple cropping systems have as defence strategies to extreme meteorological events that are less efficient or not available in monocropping and what science can contribute to understanding and developing such strategies. Where knowledge is operational at all in agrometeorological services, it is mainly for monocropping, perhaps for sequential cropping, but it remains marginal for mixed (inter)cropping and relay (inter)cropping, with the exception of the long recognized but insufficient exploited protection functions of trees in agroforestry applications (e.g. Stigter, 2008d).

In the area concerned, a double rice crop (early rice and late rice) used to be grown everywhere and is still abundantly grown. Because of the slow global warming, the seasons become longer. Now into lotus, that is sown by the end of March, early April, and gradually harvested between July and September, late rice is transplanted as a relay crop, roughly between 10 and 20 August. Because of the lotus, the rice is 45 days in the nursery, 10 days longer than normal, so the rice is transplanted later than usual. But the land is now occupied after the lotus, that is harvested till September, while the later sown early maturing rice variety occupies the land till into November.

In Stigter’s (2008a; 2008b) categorization of agrometeorological services, this “CCAAS Case Study VI” example should mainly be seen as from the category “Development and validation of adaptation strategies to changes (G)”. However, it has also some elements of “Advices such as in design rules on above and below ground microclimate management and manipulation (B)”, where it shows “fitting the crop to the season” aspects of microclimate management, as in Stigter’s earlier categorization of microclimate related work in agriculture in the early eighties (e.g. Stigter, 1994). This also comes back in the choice of earlier maturing varieties of late rice, and in microclimate issues of the lotus crop, such as in positive shading, that should be further researched.

The lotus normally fetches a high prize and the rice is an additional bonus. The lotus may lose 10% of its harvest because of the rice but under land scarcity the late rice is a useful addition. In the seventies this would not have been possible, but climate change makes it possible. Of course under early cold waves the rice will lose in production.

For extension, here eight times a kind of Climate Field Classes was organized to demonstrate and popularize the method with the target groups concerned and an office was available for training that we visited. As we earlier indicated, a comparison of such an approach (e.g. Winarto et al., 2008) with the “cascade” down coming of extension information in China would be a great last phase of the pilot projects started (Stigter, 2008c).

Another important lesson learned here is the economically successful adaptation that is provided to a changing climate. Only some decades ago, the present development would not have been feasible in this farming system. This is a warning for any scenarios projecting present cropping systems into the future and detailing their suffering from climate change. There are many ways for adaptation through agrometeorological services and farmers are keen to innovate and follow up (e.g. also Winarto et al., 2008).

Acknowledgements

The preliminary account given in the information sheet above has largely been derived from a first part of a draft of Prof. Stigter’s recent mission report (Stigter, 2008c) on his September/October mission to China. Using the English language, in which most of the co-authors are not or less conversant, while he is not conversant with the Chinese language, any errors are his responsibility. Prof. Zheng Dawei is the skilled intermediate and translator for Stigter’s work in China since 1999. The Chinese Meteorological Administration (Beijing) is acknowledged for the core funding of the present pilot project. The Provincial Meteorological Administrations concerned are thankfully mentioned for their organizational efforts to make the more detailed identification of these agrometeorological services possible. Their great hospitality made the tiring travel more than worthwhile.

References

KNMI for Netherlands Government (compiled by Kees Stigter), 2006 (Rev. 2008). Capacity building in the area of agrometeorological services through roving seminars. Document originally distributed and presented as CAgM-XIV/INF. 4 at the XIVth Session of the WMO CAgM, New Delhi, October/November.

Rathore L.S. and C.J. Stigter, 2007. Challenges to coping strategies with agrometeorological risks and uncertainties- Regional Perspectives: Asia. In: M.V.K. Sivakumar and R. Motha (eds), Managing weather and climate risks in agriculture. Springer, Berlin/Heidelberg (pp. 53-69).

Stigter, C.J., 1994. Management and manipulation of microclimate.Ch. XXVII in: J.F. Griffiths (Ed.), Handbook of Agricultural Meteorology, Oxford University Press, (pp. 273 – 284).

Stigter, Kees, 2008a. Operational agrometeorology: problems and perspectives.

Invited contribution (Souvenir Paper) to a Souvenir Booklet for an International Meeting on Agrometeorology and Food Security. CRIDA, Hyderabad, India, pp. 41 – 47.

Stigter, Kees, 2008b. Agrometeorological services: reaching all farmers with operational information products in new educational commitments. Draft brochure written for WMO/CAgM, 26 pp.

Stigter, Kees, 2008c. Report of a fourth "Agromet Vision" mission to Asia: China, Indonesia, 15 September 2008 till 30 April 2009. First part on China. Agromet Vision, Bondowoso (Indonesia) and Bruchem (Netherlands), 28 pp.

Stigter, Kees, 2008d. Problems and solutions in coping with extreme meteorological events in agricultural production, and challenges remaining for the use of science to contribute to problem analyses and designing valuable solutions in this context: multiple cropping. Draft section III.3.3. (A) in: Kees Stigter (Ed.), Applied Agrometeorology. Springer, Heidelberg/Berlin/New York, in preparation for 2009.

Stigter, C.J., Tan Ying, H.P. Das, Zheng Dawei, R.E. Rivero Vega, Nguyen van Viet, N.I. Bakheit and Y.M. Abdullahi, 2007. Complying with farmers' conditions and needs using new weather and climate information approaches and technologies. In: M.V.K. Sivakumar and R. Motha (eds), Managing weather and climate risks in agriculture. Springer, Berlin/Heidelberg (pp. 171-190).

Wei, Yurong, 2008. Frost Forecast Service of Inner Mongolia in 2007. Available at the INSAM website under “Accounts of Operational Agrometeorology” of 17 April as winner of third prize.

Winarto, Yunita T., Kees Stigter, Esti Anantasari and Siti Nur Hidayah, 2008. Climate Field Schools in Indonesia: coping with climate change and beyond. Low External Input Sustainable Agriculture (LEISA) Magazine, 24 (4), accepted for publication.