Many factors impact a wheat crop’s ability to reach its full yield potential. Common culprits include nutrient deficiencies, water stress, suboptimal seeding management, poor genetic selection, soil quality and pests. Like many invisible weights dragging down on the productivity of each plant, these factors chip away at the crop’s yield, resulting in a lower actual yield. The difference between the actual yield and the yield potential is known as the yield gap.
Some factors that reduce yield are out of a farmer’s control. The most obvious of these factors is rainfall. Some factors reducing yield are also socioeconomic. Socioeconomic factors include a lack of access to agronomic information, risk aversion, time resources and available credit. If a disease impacts crop health but a farmer chooses not to spray fungicide based on incorrect agronomic information, the yield gap expands. Some of these factors are purely management decisions that are not ideal for the variety and the environment.
So why is this important to you as a farmer? Closing the yield gap can help increase farm profitability and land use efficiency. The differences between actual yield and yield potential in rainfed areas in Western Canada are 34 per cent1. Completely closing the yield gap can have economic implications. Some of the best wheat production areas in the world produce 70 to 80 per cent of yield potential2. Achieving yields higher than this range is challenging as the costs associated with increasing yields incrementally above this level are often uneconomical.
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