Concern in the agricultural world. While this Tuesday, some 69 metropolitan departments are still affected by a prefectural decree that limits certain uses of water, the lack of rainfall and the suffocating heat threaten to destroy a good part of the crops.
Starting with the corn. Grown mainly in the west of the country, the cereal is in flower this season.
In some regions such as Brittany, the leaves are already folded on themselves so as not to burn their epidermis.
Penalized by the lack of water during this critical flowering period, the risk is that the ears will be smaller.
-30 to -50% in corn
Another plant at risk this season: the sunflower. If the flower is a little more resistant than that of corn, from 38°C it begins to suffer. A temperature widely exceeded for several days.
Especially since in addition to the lack of precipitation, the hot air that circulates from the west has a detrimental effect on the plants.
Although it is still too early to estimate the losses incurred (the harvest takes place in September), a reduced harvest would be bad news for consumers in the context of shortages linked to the war in Ukraine.
The cow equivalent of a heater.
Other productions are in the pollination period, such as horticulture in the southeast. Beyond 35°C, pollination decreases. Beyond 40°C for several days, the plant may not give anything.
If the plants are worrying, it is the farms that have been drooling the most for a few days. For a few days now, on most farms in northern France, the cows no longer come out. Fans run at full speed in the stables and the animals are sprayed to lower the hellish temperatures by 5°C.
This situation of heat stress causes respiratory difficulties, prevents the cows from ruminating and causes significant losses in milk production (between 2 and 3 kg per day depending on the summer temperature, that is, from 30 to 40% of the production).
Source: BFM TV
