What Does Crop Yield Potential Mean?
In agriculture, crop yield potential refers to the output of a crop cultivar when grown with nutrients and water. Crop yield potential is mainly regulated by genetic characteristics, atmospheric CO2 concentration, temperature and solar radiation. In most cases, a crop’s yield potential is not shown for plants that have been rainfed.
Maximum Yield Explains Crop Yield Potential
Because a population increase of 35% is expected by 2050, it is crucial to measure the crop yield potential of various plots of agricultural land from all over the world. As such, crop yield potential can also be used to minimize agricultural expansion into remaining grasslands, wetlands and rainforests.
There are three main techniques that are used to estimate crop yield potential:
- Consulting an agronomist: These specialists can help gardeners make informed decisions related to their fertilizing and irrigation plans. Depending on the different plant types, agronomists can also help planters unlock certain micronutrients from the growing soil in order to enhance plant growth and development.
- Taking a soil sample: This important test can help gardeners make important decision when it comes to their soil fertility and quality. Soil samples have therefore been shown to be crucial to estimating a crop’s yield potential.
- Taking a tissue sample: While most soils are abundant with nutrients, some plants are limited by their root absorption capacity. In fact, some nutrients are not absorbed by the roots because they have merged with other soil particles. A tissue sample can help gardeners identify the nutrients that are already present in the soil, but not being absorbed by the plants. Following this, gardeners normally invest in nutrient-rich fertilizers to replace the minerals and nutrients that are not being absorbed in order to increase agricultural output.