Historical development and recent advancements in Agrometeorology

• During the early Buddhist period, the relationship between rainfall and crop production seems to be fairly understood.
• Rainfall measurement and the studies of rainfall characteristics received great attention during this period as expressed in Kautilya’s arthashastha.
• Varahamira in his Sanskrit text ‘brihat sanhita’ stated 125 slokes, outlined for weather forecasting.
• The modern times development in Agrometeorology begun with the discovery of the Reaumurise of the temperature by Rene Reaumur in 1730. In 1735, he expressed the temperature relationship by the quantity of heat required to bring a plant up to a given stage of maturity by means of the temperature summations i.e. ΣT= Constant
• In 1919, Garner and Allard discovered the concept of photoperiodism in the plant which is the response of the plant to the day or night duration for the flowering induction.
• In 1935, Lysenko proposed the theory of the phasic development in the plants and indicated that the plant respond differently to the physical environment at different stage of their life cycle. This helped in establishing important distinction between growth and development.
• In 1949, Went developed phytotron in which it is possible to control practically the physical environmental variables affecting the growth and development processes in the plants. This led an important concept of climatic farming in controlled environment in the temperate regions.