Abstract
Timely and reliable maize yield prediction is essential for the agricultural supply chain and food security. Previous studies using either climate or satellite data or both to build empirical or statistical models have prevailed for decades. However, to what extent climate and satellite data can improve yield prediction is still unknown. In addition, fertilizer information may also improve crop yield prediction, especially in regions with different fertilizer systems, such as cover crop, mineral fertilizer, or compost. Machine learning (ML) has been widely and successfully applied in crop yield prediction. Here, we attempted to predict maize yield from 1994 to 2007 at the plot scale by integrating multi-source data, including monthly climate data, satellite data (i.e., vegetation indices (VIs)), fertilizer data, and soil data to explore the accuracy of different inputs to yield prediction. The results show that incorporating all of the datasets using random forests (RF) and AB (adaptive boosting) can achieve better performances in yield prediction (R2: 0.85~0.98). In addition, the combination of VIs, climate data, and soil data (VCS) can predict maize yield more effectively than other combinations (e.g., combinations of all data and combinations of VIs and soil data). Furthermore, we also found that including different fertilizer systems had different prediction accuracies. This paper aggregates data from multiple sources and distinguishes the effects of different fertilization scenarios on crop yield predictions. In addition, the effects of different data on crop yield were analyzed in this study. Our study provides a paradigm that can be used to improve yield predictions for other crops and is an important effort that combines multi-source remotely sensed and environmental data for maize yield prediction at the plot scale and develops timely and robust methods for maize yield prediction grown under different fertilizing systems.
Highlights
Sustainable crop yield is the ultimate goal of farmland cultivation and it is a direct indicator of farmland productivity and income
We found that the accuracy of yield prediction varied across different sys(Figure 6)
We predicted maize yield at the plot scale based on multi-source data and multiple machine learning models at the plot scale in Russell Ranch Sustainable Agriculture Facility (RRSAF)
Summary
Sustainable crop yield is the ultimate goal of farmland cultivation and it is a direct indicator of farmland productivity and income. Maize (Zea mays L.) is the staple food for more than 4.5 billion people, and the demand is expected to double by 2050 [1]. Timely and accurate prediction of maize yield is vital for international policy and for grain storage and trade. Traditional crop yield prediction primarily relies on models and statistical regression methods [2]. Remote sensing (RS) technology is objective, low cost, and rapid, and can overcome the limitations of traditional field methods for crop yield prediction. Previous studies have mostly used the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), enhanced vegetation index (EVI), and enhanced vegetation index
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