Agroforestry Systems 41: 85–112, 1998.

 1998 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

Direct mechanical effects of wind on crops1

H. A. CLEUGH1, *, J. M. MILLER2 and M. BÖHM3

1
CSIRO Land and Water, Pye Laboratory, P.O. Box 1666, Canberra, ACT 2601, Australia;
2
Environmental Biology Group, Research School of Biological Sciences, Australian National
University, Canberra, ACT 2601; 3 CSIRO Land and Water, Pye Laboratory, Canberra, ACT
2601 (*Author for correspondence: E-mail: helen.cleugh@cbr.clw.csiro.au)

Key words: abrasion, leaf stripping, lodging, sandblasting, thigmorphogenesis, windbreaks

Abstract. This review describes those mechanisms by which wind directly affects crop growth
rates and hence yields. Wind-induced plant movement is capable of altering growth rates and
leaf morphology, although this is unlikely to be a major cause of growth differences between
sheltered and unsheltered crops grown outdoors. The wind’s force can tear leaves or strip them
from the plant. Dense plant canopies may suffer abrasion through intermittent or constant
rubbing. Soil particles lifted into suspension by the wind have the potential to abrade and damage
plant tissue. The wind’s force can physically knock plants over, making crops difficult to harvest.
Each of these mechanisms operates at a particular time of the growing season. Recovery, and
hence final yield, depends on the growth stage and soil/plant moisture status when the damage
occurred, the particular species and variety as well as the preceding and subsequent weather.
The fact that damage effects are so dependent on the crop and the past weather makes model-
ling and any simple synthesis of direct wind effects difficult. The most common forms of damage
likely in Australia’s agricultural regions are from sandblasting and lodging. These damage events
will be intermittent – their frequency depending on the local climate. Leaf tearing is likely in
broad-leafed horticultural crops, and growth effects are also likely in any windy location. It is
not possible to predict what the impact of this damage, and other direct effects, will be on final
yields, Based on the results in the literature, protection from damage offered by windbreaks may
have as large an effect on yields as incremental microclimate benefits.

1. Introduction

Shelter can affect crop and pasture productivity both through indirect micro-
climate effects (Cleugh, this Volume) and protection from the direct force of
the wind. Some direct mechanical effects of wind include: plant motions as
a result of both the turbulence and the drag force of the mean wind; uprooting
of plants when the wind’s force exceeds the stem or root/soil strength and
physical leaf damage arising from leaf tearing, stripping and abrasion. Other
damaging processes, such as sandblasting, combine abrasion and tearing.
Plants respond in a variety of ways to these mechanical effects. The main
response is a change in growth rate – of the whole plant or parts of the plant
(e.g. changes in the root:shoot ratio); in morphology and in final grain yields.
Mechanical effects, and plant responses, may occur throughout the growing
season of a crop. Wind erosion of topsoil is possible even before the crop is
established and sown seeds can be physically blown out of the soil (Kort,
86

1988). Strong winds can lead to the burial of newly emerged crops, or pull
young seedlings from the soil, or partially expose their roots (Komlev, 1960;
Woodruff et al., 1972). Incomplete canopy cover allows soil particles to be
mobilised by the wind’s shearing force on the soil surface. These blowing par-
ticles will abrade and damage seedlings. As the canopy develops, wind
induced movements can cause leaves to rub together, continuing the process
of abrasion. As the crop grows taller, especially as the grain head fills, the
force of the wind can lodge the crop either by breaking stems or by causing
the collapse of the soil and roots. Fallen crops are difficult to harvest and grain
recovery may not be economic. Lastly, crops left to dry in the field after
harvest can be blown away, or lose yield due to seed shattering in strong
winds. (Kort, 1988).
This review paper has the aim of describing and assessing (1) the direct
mechanical effects of wind on plants, (2) plant responses to these effects in
terms of growth rates, plant morphology and final yields, and (3) the likely
benefits to plant productivity of sheltering and protecting crops from the direct
mechanical effects of wind using windbreaks. The emphasis is on crops of
interest to Australia’s National Windbreaks Program: cereals, broad-leafed
crops such as potatoes, and pasture. Most field investigations are difficult to
interpret because shelter also affects the microclimate. This review therefore
focuses on laboratory-based studies where attempts have been made in the
experimental design to account for the covariance of environmental variables.
Disruption of pollen and pathogen pathways is regarded as an indirect effect
of wind and is not considered here.

2. Mechanical aspects of wind

Many plant responses, from changes in plant morphology to lodging, depend

less on the mean wind velocity than on the intermittent and turbulent nature
of wind (Nobel, 1981; van Gardingen and Grace, 1991). Sporadic high winds
can remove plant parts and have other mechanical effects of far greater con-
sequence than their relative infrequency would indicate.
As air flows over a surface, a force called the skin friction is exerted tan-
gentially onto that surface (Monteith, 1973). Bluff bodies (such as plants,
trees, buildings, windbreaks etc.) immersed within the fluid experience an
additional force – the form drag – in the direction of the airflow. Form drag
and skin friction are key to understanding the interaction between wind and
plants. The drag force, F (comprising both form drag and skin friction), acting
on an isolated bluff body (e.g. a plant or a leaf ) is given in the meteorolog-
ical literature by:
F = rU2 a cd
where r is the air’s density; U is the mean windspeed; a is the area of the
body exposed to the wind; and cd is the drag coefficient. If a factor of 0.5 is