High temporal resolution of leaf area data improves empirical estimation of grain yield

Abstract

Abstract Empirical yield estimation from satellite data has long lacked suitable combinations of spatial and temporal resolutions. Consequently, the selection of metrics, i.e., temporal descriptors that predict grain yield, has likely been driven by practicality and data availability rather than by systematic targetting of critically sensitive periods as suggested by knowledge of crop physiology. The current trend towards hyper-temporal data raises two questions: How does temporality affect the accuracy of empirical models? Which metrics achieve optimal performance? We followed an in silico approach based on crop modelling which can generate any observation frequency, explore a range of growing conditions and reduce the cost of measuring yields in situ. We simulated wheat crops across Australia and regressed six types of metrics derived from the resulting time series of Leaf Area Index (LAI) against wheat yields. Empirical models using advanced LAI metrics achieved national relevance and, contrary to simple metrics, did not benefit from the addition of weather information. This suggests that they already integrate most climatic effects on yield. Simple metrics remained the best choice when LAI data are sparse. As we progress into a data-rich era, our results support a shift towards metrics that truly harness the temporal dimension of LAI data.