Climate-informed agronomic advisories for maize in Colombia: Progress report for the Excellence in Agronomy (EiA) initiative Latin America Use Case

Decision making in agriculture has been based on general (blanket) recommendations made by technicians, the farmer's own knowledge or local practices that are adopted as customary for generations. Recognizing the need to generate information to help make site-specific decisions based on traditional...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Diaz, Maria Victoria, Estrada, Oscar, Llanos, Lizeth, Ramírez Villegas, Julián Armando
Format: Informe técnico
Language:Inglés
Published: 2023
Subjects:
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/10568/137380
_version_ 1855536516563992576
author Diaz, Maria Victoria
Estrada, Oscar
Llanos, Lizeth
Ramírez Villegas, Julián Armando
author_browse Diaz, Maria Victoria
Estrada, Oscar
Llanos, Lizeth
Ramírez Villegas, Julián Armando
author_facet Diaz, Maria Victoria
Estrada, Oscar
Llanos, Lizeth
Ramírez Villegas, Julián Armando
author_sort Diaz, Maria Victoria
collection Repository of Agricultural Research Outputs (CGSpace)
description Decision making in agriculture has been based on general (blanket) recommendations made by technicians, the farmer's own knowledge or local practices that are adopted as customary for generations. Recognizing the need to generate information to help make site-specific decisions based on traditional agronomic research, this study uses Machine Learning (ML) models and a Global Harmony Search (GHS) methodology to find an optimal solution to the combination of practices that a farmer could implement according to his soil and climate conditions specific to his land. The dataset used included 748 observations, and 45 explanatory variables, with the only response variable being maize yield, and covered the period 2013–2019. The ML models used, namely, Random Forest (R2=0.64) and CatBoost (R2=0.68) showed relatively high performance. The most important variables in both models were related to climate. We highlight in particular the importance of the rainfall during the various stages of the growing cycle, as well as the frequency of rainfall events with more than 10 millimeters. The GHS approach showed that producing agronomic recommendations based on a climate forecast can help maintain yield levels. Future work should focus on adding new farmer field observations, retraining the ML models, and exploring the importance of independent variable interaction. These steps will help develop more robust recommendations for maize farmers in Colombia.
format Informe técnico
id CGSpace137380
institution CGIAR Consortium
language Inglés
publishDate 2023
publishDateRange 2023
publishDateSort 2023
record_format dspace
spelling CGSpace1373802025-11-05T12:27:55Z Climate-informed agronomic advisories for maize in Colombia: Progress report for the Excellence in Agronomy (EiA) initiative Latin America Use Case Diaz, Maria Victoria Estrada, Oscar Llanos, Lizeth Ramírez Villegas, Julián Armando climate change adaptation data analysis modelling forecasting Decision making in agriculture has been based on general (blanket) recommendations made by technicians, the farmer's own knowledge or local practices that are adopted as customary for generations. Recognizing the need to generate information to help make site-specific decisions based on traditional agronomic research, this study uses Machine Learning (ML) models and a Global Harmony Search (GHS) methodology to find an optimal solution to the combination of practices that a farmer could implement according to his soil and climate conditions specific to his land. The dataset used included 748 observations, and 45 explanatory variables, with the only response variable being maize yield, and covered the period 2013–2019. The ML models used, namely, Random Forest (R2=0.64) and CatBoost (R2=0.68) showed relatively high performance. The most important variables in both models were related to climate. We highlight in particular the importance of the rainfall during the various stages of the growing cycle, as well as the frequency of rainfall events with more than 10 millimeters. The GHS approach showed that producing agronomic recommendations based on a climate forecast can help maintain yield levels. Future work should focus on adding new farmer field observations, retraining the ML models, and exploring the importance of independent variable interaction. These steps will help develop more robust recommendations for maize farmers in Colombia. 2023-12-21 2024-01-09T09:27:26Z 2024-01-09T09:27:26Z Report https://hdl.handle.net/10568/137380 en Open Access application/pdf Diaz, M.V.; Estrada, O.; Llanos, L.; Ramirez-Villegas, J. (2023) Climate-informed agronomic advisories for maize in Colombia: Progress report for the Excellence in Agronomy (EiA) initiative Latin America Use Case. 14 p.
spellingShingle climate change adaptation
data analysis
modelling
forecasting
Diaz, Maria Victoria
Estrada, Oscar
Llanos, Lizeth
Ramírez Villegas, Julián Armando
Climate-informed agronomic advisories for maize in Colombia: Progress report for the Excellence in Agronomy (EiA) initiative Latin America Use Case
title Climate-informed agronomic advisories for maize in Colombia: Progress report for the Excellence in Agronomy (EiA) initiative Latin America Use Case
title_full Climate-informed agronomic advisories for maize in Colombia: Progress report for the Excellence in Agronomy (EiA) initiative Latin America Use Case
title_fullStr Climate-informed agronomic advisories for maize in Colombia: Progress report for the Excellence in Agronomy (EiA) initiative Latin America Use Case
title_full_unstemmed Climate-informed agronomic advisories for maize in Colombia: Progress report for the Excellence in Agronomy (EiA) initiative Latin America Use Case
title_short Climate-informed agronomic advisories for maize in Colombia: Progress report for the Excellence in Agronomy (EiA) initiative Latin America Use Case
title_sort climate informed agronomic advisories for maize in colombia progress report for the excellence in agronomy eia initiative latin america use case
topic climate change adaptation
data analysis
modelling
forecasting
url https://hdl.handle.net/10568/137380
work_keys_str_mv AT diazmariavictoria climateinformedagronomicadvisoriesformaizeincolombiaprogressreportfortheexcellenceinagronomyeiainitiativelatinamericausecase
AT estradaoscar climateinformedagronomicadvisoriesformaizeincolombiaprogressreportfortheexcellenceinagronomyeiainitiativelatinamericausecase
AT llanoslizeth climateinformedagronomicadvisoriesformaizeincolombiaprogressreportfortheexcellenceinagronomyeiainitiativelatinamericausecase
AT ramirezvillegasjulianarmando climateinformedagronomicadvisoriesformaizeincolombiaprogressreportfortheexcellenceinagronomyeiainitiativelatinamericausecase