The global demand and consumption of agricultural crops is increasing at a rapid pace. It is estimated that the global yield needs to increase at an average annual rate of 1.73 percent to sustainably produce food, feed, fibre and bioenergy for 10 billion people in 2050.
Globally, agricultural productivity is struggling to keep pace with population growth, highlighting the importance of research into traditional practices as well as new ones. Such improvements require special scientific collaboration.
Agronomy
Crop Science (or ‘agronomy’) is a multi-disciplinary field which focuses on research and development of plant-based crops. The subject includes scientific knowledge and understanding of the cultivation, management, processing and production of crops.
For low income countries especially, crop science enables a deep review of important agricultural issues and challenges to take place.
Challenges include resource planning, including resource use that is consistent with sustainable production of food, feed, fibre and fuel. production, processing and marketing of food and non-food products.
Henan Agricultural University
The crop science discipline has prominent advantages and distinct features in the research about the theory and technology for the coordinated improvement of yields and efficiency of annual double-cropping crops. This approach is being pioneered at Henan Agricultural University. The crop science discipline was initially established in 1912. In 2007, crop science was recognized as a first-level national key discipline.
Recent progress has focused on the scientific issues of the interaction between crop growth and development with the environment. For example, by dissecting the genomes of excellent varieties of annual double-cropping crops and innovating research methods in functional genomics, scientists have mined functional genes related to excellent traits such as crop growth and development.
Hence, as a science there is considerable focus upon the chemical, physical, and biological relationships of crops and the soils nurturing them.
Disease resistant crops
Other areas of research include a better understanding of disease resistance and heat tolerance. Another important line of inquiry is nutrient efficiency.
Some of these areas feed into environmental sustainability. Crop science can provide improved resource use efficiencies for water, fertilisers and labour, as key components of optimising environmental and economically sustainable food production.
Such research provides theoretical guidance and genetic resources for the breeding of new crop varieties that are high-yielding, high-quality, disease-resistant, and stress-tolerant, and offers technical support for improving crop production efficiency.
