Writer: Jorge A. Ramirez, (210) 208-9311, jaramirez@tamu.edu
Contact: Dr. Raghavan Srinivasan, (979) 845-5069, r-srinivasan@tamu.edu
SAN ANTONIO – An international collaborative research project is establishing a system for monitoring and predicting crop yield in the Mexican states of Sinaloa and Tamaulipas.
Texas A&M scientists from the Blacklands Research and Extension Center and the Spatial Sciences Laboratory (SSL) and their collaborators from the Agricultural Research Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture are working with a team of scientists from INIFAP, the principal Mexican agricultural research agency.
The project launched in 1999 seeks to predict corn yield in Sinaloa and sorghum yield in Tamaulipas. The long-term goal is to establish a national crop yield prediction system in Mexico.
During 1999, INIFAP scientists trained at the Blacklands facility in Temple and at the Spatial Sciences Laboratory at College Station on the use of computer-modeling programs to predict crop yield.
The project takes data gathered from farmers’ plots, weather stations, satellite images and crop history and inputs it to a computer simulation model that predicts yields for the current growing season. Daily satellite measurement techniques, among them Leaf Area Index (LAI), Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and Land Surface Temperature (LST), are real-time tools used in the process.
“Our predictions for the 1999-2000 season were 95 percent accurate,” said Dr. Raghavan Srinivasan, director of the SSL and lead U.S. researcher for the project.
Historically, Sinaloa has yielded 7.5 metric tons of corn per hectare; the project estimated a yield of 9.5 metric tons per hectare and the actual yield was 9.3 metric tons. In Tamaulipas, the historical yield of sorghum is 2.15 metric tons per hectare; the project estimated 2.7 metric tons per hectare and the actual yield was 2.35 metric tons.
“Being able to predict crop yield has economic impacts for producers, the Mexican government and the United States,” Srinivasan said. “The farmer can be more successful and the federal government is providing information which helps in predicting markets, determining demand/supply and setting prices.
“On a local level, crop yield projection has direct and positive impacts on producers,” he added. “By accurate monitoring early in the growing season, producers can compensate, if needed, by increasing irrigation and fertilizer use.”
According to Srinivasan, there is no system in place in Mexico for predicting national crop yield. In the United States, he explained, these such systems are employed by the USDA. Eventually, he said, the process used in this project may graduate to a national model in Mexico. INIFAP will dedicate a new center in Aguascalientes to serve as the headquarters for the project.
The research project is being funded at between $1 million and $2 million annually for three years by INIFAP. The funds cover the high cost of field labor for data reporting and a dedicated, high-speed transmission line between INIFAP and the Blacklands center for transmitting and processing field and satellite data.
According to INIFAP Director in Chief Jorge Kondo, INIFAP is conducting 25 national strategic initiatives, including the crop yield research project, as a resource for Mexico’s Secretary of Agriculture.
“The strategic program,” said Kondo, “is highly valued for its importance in informed decision-making in areas such as expected price, commercialization support programs, and import authorizations, among others.”
“The collaboration with Texas A&M,” said Dr. Mario Tiscareno, national crop research leader for INIFAP, “has been highly successful, starting in 1998 with climatic prediction of the ‘El Niño’ effect on agriculture, which allowed farmers to plan the best crop and avoid the negative impact of the phenomenon.
“Today climatic prediction is routinely offered to producers and others through our Web site, (http://www.inifap.conacyt.mx), and the remote sensing technology is tested in most of Mexico’s states. This coming year it will be validated and improved for 80 percent of Mexico’s main breadbasket areas, which will fortify our agricultural system.”
The A&M/INIFAP relationship dates back to the mid-1990s. In this current project, Blacklands staff access Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) satellite data from Texas and Mexico and provide the data, computer and the technical assistance on simulation modeling and remote sensing. SSL and Blacklands staff have developed protocol for data analyses and syntheses. INIFAP, in turn, funds the dedicated data line for access to AVHRR data.
Locally, SSL hopes to apply Mexico findings to use in Texas models.
“Because we share the same eco-regions,” says Blacklands Director Dr. William Dugas, “we’ll be able to apply what we’ve learned with this current project in Texas, saving developmental time.”
One of the challenges of the project is determining how many acres of each crop are planted. With thousands of producers throughout the nation, and no formal system of reporting crop planting, the project relies on its satellite component, or the daily NDVI image, to augment field reporting. These images indicate whether a field is planted or bare.
Future plans, according to Srinivasan, include expanding study areas to include the Mexican states of Jalisco, Mexico, Guanajuato, Tlaxcala, Puebla, Veracruz, and Chiapas.
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