Considerations of meterological time series in estimating regional- scale crop yield

Abstract

The sensitivity of simulated yield to spatial averaging of meteorological data was analyzed for the central United Sates during a 23-year period. Regional yield was simulated using the physiological model, SOYGRO, in two sets of experiments. Spatial averaging caused bias ranging from 18% in 2° latitude × 2° longitude grid cells to 28% in 5° latitude × 5° longitude grid cells when averaged over the study period. During individual years such averaging caused bias exceeding 80% of simulated yield. -from Author