New Method for Increasing Sustainable Agricultural Yield

Abstract

The main objective of this study is to look for a new method, to obtain the maximum production, and the minimum economic and environmental cost.

Scientific advances in bioclimatology have brought a greater understanding of the functioning of plant individuals, populations and communities, and the study and interpretation of bioclimatic indices reveals the close relationship between the values of these indices and crop yields.

In cases where insufficient meteorological data are available to allow the various formulas to be applied, thermoclimatic and ombroclimatic bioindicators must be used, some of which have been collected by us in previous works.

This paper contains a bioclimatic study of the southern Iberian Peninsula in relation to the main olive varieties grown in these territories. We establish the values of some key indices for cultivation: continentality index (Ic), which determines the annual thermal range and allows us to establish the period of vegetative activity (PAV); the ombrothermic index (Io), which measures the ombrotype in the different sites; and the thermicity and compensated thermicity index, which denote the thermotype in the territory (It/Itc). In the relationship between the value of the bioclimatic indices and olive production, good fits are obtained in the regression analysis with R2> 0.90, and is very positive influence of the different parameters used. In conclusion the greatest influence on the production of Ic is between 18.5-19.5, Io 3.5-4.5 and It / Itc 320-350. This allows to obtain areas of maximum production with a lower economic cost.