Estimating yield gaps at the cropping system level.

ABSTRACT: Yield gap analyses of individual crops have been used to estimate opportunities for increasing crop production at local to global scales, thus providing information crucial to food security. However, increases in crop production can also be achieved by improving cropping system yield through modification of spatial and temporal arrangement of individual crops. In this paper we define the cropping system yield potential as the output from the combination of crops that gives the highest energy yield per unit of land and time, and the cropping system yield gap as the difference between actual energy yield of an existing cropping system and the cropping system yield potential. Then, we provide a framework to identify alternative cropping systems which can be evaluated against the current ones.

SUBMITTER: Guilpart N 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5421155 | biostudies-literature | 2017 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature