Climate Change and its Impact on Plant Health: A Pakistan’s Prospective

Abstract

Climate change is an expected phenomenon, however, its impact on life, environment and different sectors of economies such as agriculture could be unexpected. Agriculture sector is more prone to climate change both directly as well indirectly such as new emergence of pest and diseases in changing climate. Agriculturists through simulation crop modeling successfully forecast the impact of changing climate on different crops. Crop modeling by comparison with plant disease modeling is much simple as only plant and subsequent impact of environment on it is predicted. Forecasting plant disease is much more complex as it involves the pathogen, plant and environment.  Plant disease forecasting in advance remains paradox due to cryptic and complex nature of plant diseases. It is paradox as some pathogens only grow well when temperature is high, and humidity is low while on other hand low temperature and high humidity is pre-requisite for most of pathogens. Therefore, an expected phenomenon climate change can unexpectedly led to many unprecedented diseases in country like Pakistan which is considered as 7^th most vulnerable country to climate change in world. The situation would be worst as on average 1.8 million automobiles are entering in Pakistani market which result more release of CO₂ and rise of temperature. It is a tailor-made situation for epidemics to occur as rise in temperature accelerate pathogen evolution and shorten the incubation time. China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is an economic game changer but it could lead to entry of invasive pathogen species in Pakistan. Smog is another upcoming challenge which could also lead to many diseases especially viral diseases due more activity of vectors. Therefore, continuous climate and pest monitoring is needed to develop efficient disease warning system for growers and other agriculture related agencies to avoid future plant epidemics.