How Daylight Saving Time Affects Crops and Precision Agriculture
As clocks shift for standard time, agricultural experts explain how crops rely on internal biological clocks rather than human schedules, highlighting the need for precision irrigation.
With the transition to standard time each autumn, humans adjust clocks on devices and appliances, yet crops in the fields remain entirely unaffected. Plants operate according to solar radiation, temperature, humidity, and their internal biological clock rather than human timekeeping.
In discussing this gap, Dr. Avishay Mia-Avny, chief agronomist at Haifa Group and an expert in Israeli agriculture, agritech innovation, and food security challenges, emphasized that modern farming must align management practices with the biological and environmental clock of the plant rather than forcing nature to adapt to human schedules.
While daylight saving time dates back to proposals by Benjamin Franklin in 1784 and George Hudson in 1895, and was widely adopted during World War I to conserve energy, essential plant processes such as stomatal opening, photosynthesis, water uptake, and nutrient absorption continue strictly according to natural environmental conditions.
This discrepancy carries significant practical implications for agriculture. An irrigation system programmed to activate daily at 06:00 will operate at a completely different interval relative to sunrise following a time change. In intensive farming, even a one-hour shift alters radiation intensity, transpiration demand, and plant water status.
Consequently, the clock change serves as a reminder to reassess irrigation and fertilization schedules rather than relying on fixed hours. In hot and arid regions like Israel, morning and midday variations profoundly affect crop water consumption.
Precision agriculture now enables a transition from rigid schedules to data-driven decisions utilizing sensors that measure cumulative radiation, temperature, soil moisture, and plant water status. This approach ensures resources are supplied precisely when and where crops require them.
As Dr. Mia-Avny notes, the transition highlights the shift from habit-based farming to precise, measurement-driven agricultural practices responsive to real-time environmental signals.
