Summer rainfall and wheat grain quality: Relationships with the North Atlantic Oscillation

What is it about?

Wheat grain quality varies greatly from year to year. Poor quality harvests occur in years with a lot of summer rain, and here we show that these years are preceded by winters with a negative index of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO). The NAO index gives an indication of storm intensity and frequency in winter. The more negative the index the less stormy the winter, and for the years we studied (1974-2000) we showed that the following summer is wetter, than when the winter NAO index is positive.

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Why is it important?

Our results give the first evidence of a link between the winter NAO and crop performance the following summer.