Multiple crops suitability & yield

Description

Mulitple crop suitability information includes

1) a pdf with maps of all the crop suitability and yield information

2) a table with the suitability rules for all of the relevant crops

3) a table with the yield ranges for all the relevant crops

Date: Apr 2022 Version: v1

Owner: MPI

Contact: Dr Steve Thomas, Plant and Food

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Dataset attributes

Methodology

The land suitability concept is used to characterise the degree of fitness of a given environment for specific agricultural activities. The key principle in the method is that land suitability for the growth of different plant species can be estimated from geo-referenced information on climate (e.g. temperature and rainfall regimes), soil (e.g. soil depth and pH) and terrain conditions (e.g. slope and aspect). The suitability model utilises a wider range of GIS-rules adapting the method from Kidd et al. (2015) and simplified "categorical" parameter ranges. To quantify land suitability for a given environment, the model translates the "biophysical attributes" into "suitability indexes" through crop-specific "suitability rules". For example, suitable growing conditions might occur between temperature ranges of 5 to 25°C for a given crop, with an optimum within a narrower range (e.g. 15 and 20°C). Suitability classes (4 classes were defined, they are well suited, suitable, marginally suited, and unsuitable) for different attribute-crop combinations can be estimated based on such suitability rules. The overall suitability index of a crop at a specific location takes value from the worst index (limiting factor) out of all the attributes index at that location. Suitability rules were either generated from the literature and through consultation with crop-specific experts. Each crop went through one or more iterations where experts would evaluate the resulting national map from current rules, identify areas where suitability was not sensible and suggest improvements to the rules to obtain expected spatial patterns.

The suitability rules are simplifications of biophysically sound principles that operate at a much lower scale of organisation (e.g. crop and plant physiological responses to the environment). Such simplification is necessary, given that suitability assessments are performed at the landscape level.

Reference: Kidd D, Webb M, Malone B, Minasny B, McBratney A. 2015. Digital soil assessment of agricultural suitability, versatility and capital in Tasmania, Australia. Geoderma Regional. 6: 7-21

Fitness for purpose / limitations

This table indicates whether the dataset is suitable for different types of questions at different scales.

Note: Users should carefully consider their purpose as this dataset may not be suitable.