Let's talk about the climate in Venezuela and its relationship with crops

Those who have read several of our articles know that we have always designed a type of agriculture that is in line with the natural processes that nature provides us, when thinking about planting a crop for food production, there are several aspects that should be considered such as the climate, which according to the analysis of this term by several authors can be defined as an average state of meteorological phenomena over a long period of time, determined by meteorological factors, geographical and climatic elements such as temperature, precipitation among others.

In that sense, we can call climatic elements those variables that are susceptible to measurement and that allow one to infer in the climate of a certain geographical area among these are temperature, solar radiation, precipitation among others, on the other hand, air masses and geographical factors can be referred to as important meteorological factors and geographical factors to the latitude and altitude that a certain geographical area presents. Some researchers mention that altitude greatly influences the climate and that it has been observed that in areas that are located at sea level, temperatures are higher or hotter and as the height increases in relation to sea level, lower or colder temperatures can be conceived.

In this same vein, according to the first academic report on climate change in Venezuela, our country has a warm and rainy climate in general, since it is located in the Intertropical Zone, they themselves mention that due to the predominant direction of the winds, and the arrangement of the alignments with respect to the marine currents, there are several climatic types similar to those found in the intertropical latitudes. They also make mention of what was described above, pointing out that altitude strongly influences the climate, especially with regard to temperature, reaching very different values according to the presence of the different thermal floors.

On the other hand, it is also important to mention that according to the spatial extension there are levels or dimensions of climate, such as macroclimate that those that are generalized climates where the set of all of them comprises a global climate according to several reports the surface can be approximately greater than 100,000 K2 also regional or municipal levels can be achieved according to the extension of the surface and also the microclimates whose surface can be less than 10 Km2 , that is, from the agricultural approach, it is likely that the production units are within the lowest levels in terms of surface area and that the conditions may vary depending on the management that is used in these systems.

Another element to consider of the climate and that is taken into account in agriculture at the time of planting and other activities is precipitation, since water is an important element for the production of crops, in Venezuela there are two well-marked periods known as little rainy between the months of November - March and rainy between the months of April – October, the rain regime is bimodal because in the rainy period there are usually two months with higher peaks of rain, this year in the geographical area where we are located Colón Municipality of the State of Zulia there have been two peaks according to what was reported by the Weather Spark website these months are the month of May and this month of October.

With the aforementioned in the previous paragraph it can be inferred that these months are the ideal ones for planting crops, although with the climatic variations that exist at present we cannot place it as a predetermined data. The Colón municipality of the State of Zulia Venezuela is a purely agricultural area, this being one of the main economic activities and where temperatures higher than 27 ° C and annual rainfall that can vary between 1,600 and 2000 mm have been reported. This data according to the climate classification according to temperature and precipitation made by Silva, Gustavo. (2010), our municipality has a very hot and rainy climate.

Dear readers, knowing these data are very important, especially in the agricultural sector since, for the sowing of crops, the adaptation of plants to the type of present climate should be considered, so that it can express its best yields, on the other hand, it is also important to know how they affect established crops, in the case of pastures in hot and rainy climates these can accelerate their growth by increasing their fiber levels, which can be caused by a decrease in the quality of the fodder crop if it is not managed efficiently.