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In-season performance of European Union wheat forecasts during extreme impacts.

ABSTRACT: Here we assess the quality and in-season development of European wheat (Triticum spp.) yield forecasts during low, medium, and high-yielding years. 440 forecasts were evaluated for 75 wheat forecast years from 1993-2013 for 25 European Union (EU) Member States. By July, years with median yields were accurately forecast with errors below ~2%. Yield forecasts in years with low yields were overestimated by ~10%, while yield forecasts in high-yielding years were underestimated by ~8%. Four-fifths of the lowest yields had a drought or hot driver, a third a wet driver, while a quarter had both. Forecast accuracy of high-yielding years improved gradually during the season, and drought-driven yield reductions were anticipated with lead times of ~2 months. Single, contrasting successive in-season, as well as spatially distant dry and wet extreme synoptic weather systems affected multiple-countries in 2003, '06, '07, '11 and 12', leading to wheat losses up to 8.1 Mt (>40% of total EU loss). In these years, June forecasts (~ 1-month lead-time) underestimated these impacts by 10.4 to 78.4%. To cope with increasingly unprecedented impacts, near-real-time information fusion needs to underpin operational crop yield forecasting to benefit from improved crop modelling, more detailed and frequent earth observations, and faster computation.

SUBMITTER: van der Velde M

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6194012 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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In-season performance of European Union wheat forecasts during extreme impacts.

van der Velde M M Baruth B B Bussay A A Ceglar A A Garcia Condado S S Karetsos S S Lecerf R R Lopez R R Maiorano A A Nisini L L Seguini L L van den Berg M M

Scientific reports 20181018 1

Here we assess the quality and in-season development of European wheat (Triticum spp.) yield forecasts during low, medium, and high-yielding years. 440 forecasts were evaluated for 75 wheat forecast years from 1993-2013 for 25 European Union (EU) Member States. By July, years with median yields were accurately forecast with errors below ~2%. Yield forecasts in years with low yields were overestimated by ~10%, while yield forecasts in high-yielding years were underestimated by ~8%. Four-fifths of ...[more]

PMID: 30337571

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In-season performance of European Union wheat forecasts during extreme impacts.

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In-season performance of European Union wheat forecasts during extreme impacts.

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