Machine Learning Approaches to Corn Yield Estimation Using Satellite Images and Climate Data: A Case of Iowa State

Abstract

Remote sensing data has been widely used in the estimation of crop yields by employing statistical methods such as regression model. Machine learning, which is an efficient empirical method for classification and prediction, is another approach to crop yield estimation. This paper described the corn yield estimation in Iowa State using four machine learning approaches such as SVM (Support Vector Machine), RF (Random Forest), ERT (Extremely Randomized Trees) and DL (Deep Learning). Also, comparisons of the validation statistics among them were presented. To examine the seasonal sensitivities of the corn yields, three period groups were set up: (1) MJJAS (May to September), (2) JA (July and August) and (3) OC (optimal combination of month). In overall, the DL method showed the highest accuracies in terms of the correlation coefficient for the three period groups. The accuracies were relatively favorable in the OC group, which indicates the optimal combination of month can be significant in statistical modeling of crop yields. The differences between our predictions and USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) statistics were about 6-8 %, which shows the machine learning approaches can be a viable option for crop yield modeling. In particular, the DL showed more stable results by overcoming the overfitting problem of generic machine learning methods.