Weather
Dust storms: a risk to cotton, seedlings and orchards
Strong wind over dry, bare ground lifts dust, sand and salt and drops them on crops. Dust blocks leaf pores and light, sand tears the leaf surface and cuts seedlings, and salt blown from the dried Aral seabed burns leaves and salts the soil. The World Bank estimates that the Aralkum desert releases 15 to 75 million tonnes of sand, dust and salt every year.
Crops: Cotton, Wheat, Orchards, Grapes, Vegetables
When it is dangerous
Seedlings are most at risk: sand cuts and buries young plants, and resowing is often needed. During vegetative growth dust on the large leaf area suppresses photosynthesis; at flowering and grain fill the damage is moderate and short-lived. Karakalpakstan and Khorezm are the most exposed, along with Bukhara, Navoi and fields on the desert edge.
Causes
- Strong wind over dry, bare ground
- Salt and dust blown from the dried Aral seabed
- Wind erosion of the farm's own tilled land
- No shelterbelts or windbreak strips around fields
Signs on the field
- Grey or white coating on leaves, leaves lose their sheen
- Spots of dead tissue after salty dust
- Seedlings shredded by sand
- Rows partly buried under drifted sand
How ClusterOS notices it
ClusterOS sees the event itself through weather data – wind speed. We have no satellite aerosol data, so a dust plume is not visible before it arrives. On storm days Sentinel-2 optical images are unreliable: dust on leaves lowers greenness and looks like stress on every field in the district at once, so storm weather data is used first of all to avoid mistaking dust for crop stress. Coating, seedling damage and burial are confirmed by an agronomist in the field.
What to do
- After a storm, inspect the seedlings: where sand has cut or buried plants, decide whether to resow
- Do not judge the crop from images taken right after a storm – compare after rain or irrigation has washed the dust off
- Plant shelterbelts and windbreak strips on exposed land
- Protect the soil surface from blowing away with tillage and cover crops
Questions
How does a dust storm damage cotton?
Dust clogs leaf pores, shades the leaf and heats it, so photosynthesis and transpiration drop. In strong wind, sand tears the leaf skin and wax layer, the leaf loses water and becomes easier to infect. Studies record a sharp drop in photosynthesis at 5–10 g of dust per square metre of leaf surface.
Why does the whole field look unhealthy in satellite images after a dust storm?
Dust on leaves distorts how they reflect light, so the satellite sees falling greenness even where plants are fine. The giveaway is that greenness drops on every field in the district at once and recovers after rain or irrigation. Images from storm days should not be treated as reliable.
Learn about this risk on your fields before it becomes a loss
We will show ClusterOS on your own fields: history since 2019, crop stage and all 24 risks.
Other risks in «Weather»
Scientific basis
- Effect of Dust Deposition on Stomatal Conductance and Leaf Temperature of Cotton, Water 2015, DOI: 10.3390/w7010116
- Thompson J.R. et al. 1984, Environmental Pollution, DOI: 10.1016/0143-1471(84)90056-4
- Analysis of a saline dust storm from the Aralkum Desert, ACP 2025
- Sand abrasion of cotton seedlings, Agronomy Journal, DOI: 10.2134/agronj2009.0052