Top 15 Factors That Can Increase The Crop Yield?
Introduction:
There are many factors that cause crop yield to decrease. Crop yield is the amount of food a crop produces for human consumption in its most usable form, usually expressed as kilograms or pounds of food per hectare per year. So might be wondering What are the Top 15 Factors That Can Increase The Crop Yield? Here are some factors include: soil quality and fertility, climate, pests and diseases, insect damage, weed control and optimal planting density.
This article covers four main factors that reduce crop yield – disease & pest management, weed management systems & competitions between plants, nutrient management practices and soil quality. We hope this article has given you an insight into some of the ways in which improving your crop yield can be achieved. But if you want to what are the factors that can decrease you crop yield you can our other article “7 Alarming Factors that can Decrease your Crop Yield“.
1.Use the Most Recent Technology to Increase Crop Production:
Use of new technological instruments and devices, we will have an opportunity to raise the production of agriculture in our country. Some of these instruments and devices were not even used before.
Technology has helped in increasing crop productions due to new methods and ideas. People who invest in innovation will always be ahead of those who are behind this development.
So, let us see why technology has helped in increasing the production of crops in our country. According to the UNICEF FAO there are about 2.4 million tons of food produced on this planet every year and about 90% of it is lost for various reasons.
This number is very small when compared with at least 10 million tons of food produced today to feed the global population. The FAO says that many people worldwide are underfed and that there are few resources available for them to cope with their daily needs.
2. Use the Latest Pest Control Technology:
In order for crop production to increase efficiently, we must be proactive with pest control technology by using the latest innovations. This is because pests are rarely just a temporary nuisance; they often have a long-term impact on crops and can cause serious problems if left unchecked.
With help from our latest tools and technologies, farmers can better understand an insect’s biology in order to avoid infestations altogether or identify the presence of a new species before it becomes problematic for crop production.
Many different species of pest can affect crop production. We have studied the factors that contribute to their success and therefore how we might be able to better control their spread. For instance, pests are attracted to warm regions with high rainfall. They also tend to feed on crops that contain a lot of sugar.
So the best strategies may be to grow crops in temperate climates, plant varieties with fewer sugars, and use integrated pest management strategies that combine different methods for effective pest control (e.g., biological, mechanical, physical).
Other methods include protecting crops from different pests by using non-selective insecticides or pesticides as well as developing transgenic species so they are resistant to certain types of herbicides or pesticides.
3. Protection from Diseases and Pests:
There are many diseases that can reduce your crop yields, but some of the worst in the world are caused by fungal infections such as “Phytophthora infestans“, which causes potato blight; bacterial infections such as Xanthomonas campestris pv. oryzae, which causes bacterial leaf scorch of rice; viral infections such as Rice tungro virus and Soybean mosaic virus; and parasitic infections like Fusarium wilt. So, protecting your crop from major diseases can increase your yield level.
4. Farm with Weed Control in Mind:
Weeds can be a major problem for farmers by reducing crop yield, interfering with harvesting equipment and preventing access to fields by machinery and workers. Weed competition with crops is greatest in the spring, and farmers can reduce this problem by using suitable herbicides or using cultivation and crop rotations to break weed seeds.
5. Improve Soil Fertility:
The best way to improve crop yield is by taking advantage of the natural fertility of the soil. The first step is to identify all soil types in your farm and then, on sandy loam soils, you need to add lots of organic matter such as leaf molds, wood shavings, bark chippings or bagged slurry.
6. Use Fertilizers:
The fertilizers you use will depend on what crops you are raising, but usually the following are recommended:
N-P-K for wheat (14-4-4) or barley (10-3-3) is usually 0–10 parts N per million parts K, and is aimed at maintaining soil fertility. For rice, the recommendation is 25–30 parts N per million parts soil. For potatoes and other root crops, the recommendation is 15–20 parts N per million parts soil. For peanuts and cotton seedlings in greenhouses, the recommendation is 10–15 parts N per million parts soil.
7. Choose the Best Varieties to Grow:
The most important factor in raising the yield of a crop is to choose the best variety for your farm. If you use a high yielding variety but have poor soil, crop failure is certain. But if you use an inferior variety that does not respond well to your local conditions, you will be wasting valuable seed and getting low yields.
Different varieties also respond differently to different N and K fertilizers, so if you use one more suited to another farmer’s crops, there will probably be less benefit from the fertilizer than if you had used that fertilizer on your own variety.
8. Plant the Right Number of Seeds:
Seed rates also raise or lower yield. It is generally considered that low levels of seed in relation to the number of plants that can be grown per unit area is best. For example, in a wheat crop, if you plant 40 seeds per square meter and get 10 plants per square meter, then you have used 2g of seed for an average bushel (1 bushel = 60kg) of wheat. If you reduce that density to 20 plants per square meter, then it increases to an average of 4g/bushel.
Other factors such as soil conditions and weed competition should also be taken into account when deciding how much seed to use (The two main exceptions are dates and rice).
9. Use Crop Rotations:
Crop rotations can increase yield by breaking the life cycle of pests and diseases which need to complete their life cycles in a single crop. If the same crop is grown year after year in the field, it can also lower yields and even cause economic losses. Crop rotation also encourages biological activity in the soil by encouraging earthworms and microbes, which contribute to healthy, fertile soils.
10. Avoid Over-Fertilization:
Excessive use of fertilizer will reduce soil fertility and so reduce crop yield. Although it is hard to determine the precise level at which fertilizer becomes uneconomical, this has certainly happened in some parts of the world. An ideal is 0–1% loss on average, although in practice you should expect a loss of around 1% for practical purposes.
11. Use Irrigation Effectively:
Irrigation systems should be used to maximize yield of all crops and to minimize the cost per unit of cereal produced. In any given crop season, it is often possible to reduce costs by using water more efficiently through chosen cropping patterns provided water is available in adequate quantities. The first aim of irrigation should always be economic benefit because irrigation can have negative effects – especially in the case of groundwater overuse.
12. Protect Your Land from Erosion:
Erosion is a major problem in all parts of the world, and especially in countries with high rainfall. Erosion can reduce crop yields and so increase costs of production. The main causes of erosion are wind erosion and water erosion. Wind erosion occurs when a surface is dragged along by the wind, whereas water erosion takes place when water mixes with particles on an invisible surface or soluble materials are washed away by rain or irrigation water to cause soil loss.
13. Plant in Time for Maximum Yield:
Seed is best planted as soon as possible after it is produced. This reduces the amount of time that the seed is exposed to damaging environmental conditions, ensuring that optimum germination rates are obtained. Some important things that you should keep in mind while using this system are water availability and rainfall duration throughout different growing seasons, as well as changes in soil moisture which affect root depth of plants.
14. Use Resistant Varieties:
Some important diseases and insects can be controlled by using resistant crop varieties, which allow them to grow in the presence of the disease or insect without being killed or stunted by it. This kind of resistance is less effective if a crop has been grown in an area before, so rotating crops between fields can help maintain resistance.
15. Have the Right Type and Quantity of Livestock to Farm Your Land:
This is an important consideration for many farmers, but it all depends on the type and amount of livestock that you have. Some animals can help reduce soil loss from erosion, increase crop yields and improve farm management. Some good examples are: livestock actually improve the soil in which they live, and promote increased yields from crops. They can also produce manure which is an excellent source of fertilizers. By drinking large quantities of water and eating roughages, livestock keep the grass short in pastures, thus hindering the invasion of weeds into fields. Manure from cattle can be used as a fertilizer for gardens, crops and orchards because it helps to increase crop yields.
