Detecting global trends of cereal yield stability by adjusting the coefficient of variation

By T. Döring, M. Reckling. European Journal of Agronomy, 2018

111 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract High stability of crop yields is a key objective in crop production and breeding, especially under the conditions of a changing climate. Reliable indices are therefore needed for quantifying yield stability. Recently it was shown that some frequently used indices of yield stability, such as the coefficient of variation (CV) may be wrongly interpreted if there is a systematic dependence of the variance σ² from the mean yield μ following Taylor’s power law. Here we propose a method to adjust the standard CV to account for the systematic dependence of σ² from μ. This adjusted CV can be used as a stability index that is expressed in units that are equivalent to the standard CV, as a percentage of the mean, and can therefore be used in agronomic studies that aim to provide guidance for farmers and advisors. Applying this adjusted CV (called aCV) to FAO cereal yield data, we show that the temporal yield stability of both wheat and rye has weakly but significantly decreased over the last five decades and this trend was not picked up with the standard CV in wheat, and was more marked with the aCV than with the standard CV in rye. For the intensifying research on yield stability in agronomy, the suggested method is a novel alternative to estimate yield stability more conclusively, allowing straight-forward interpretation and providing the basis for developing cropping systems with higher yield stability in the future.

Subfields: Agronomy and Crop Science, Plant Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/a053e85d7f1191c53c335cfff0e2cfeac4bae86e

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Agronomy and Crop Science

1. Adrian C. Newton
2. Diego Rubiales
3. L. Kiær

In Plant Science

1. Adrian C. Newton
2. Eveline Adam
3. Diego Rubiales
4. L. Kiær
5. C. Scherber

Citations in the corpus

• Grain Yield Stability of Cereal-Legume Intercrops Is Greater Than Sole Crops in More Productive Conditions (2021, methodology): “Thus, the SIDelta was calculated based on the year-to-year yield differences to capture temporal stability; the SIaCV was computed on the basis of adjusted coefficients of variation to accommodate both temporal and spatial variability and avoiding the disadvantages of the standard coefficient of var”