Identification of Maize Yield Trend Patterns in the North China Plain
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RESEARCH
Identification of Maize Yield Trend Patterns in the North China Plain Zemin Zhang1,2 · Changhe Lu1,2 Received: 15 June 2020 / Accepted: 12 October 2020 © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
Abstract Yield growth stagnation in grain crops has been reported worldwide over recent decades. To understand this recent crop yield trend and its causes in China, we conducted an analysis of maize (Zea mays L.) in the North China Plain (NCP) as a case study. First, we analyzed the change characteristics of maize yield for the whole region during 1998–2015, then identified trend patterns at county level via an approach based mainly on the Mann–Kendall and Sen’s slope methods, and finally, analyzed the contribution of major causal factors to maize yield changes based on multiple linear regression (MLR) function. The results indicated that regional mean maize yield in the whole NCP increased by 0.02–2.03% per year before 2011, then declined by—0.83% during 2011–2015. Regionally, maize yield in the southern NCP did not improve greatly; in the north, it increased before 2011, then declined or stagnated thereafter. Only 40 counties showed a continuous increasing trend (IN), whereas 180 counties displayed an increasing–stagnating trend (IN-ST); 52 and 40 counties showed trend patterns of stagnating (ST) and decreasing (DE) in yield, respectively. On the whole, the maize yield in 87.8% of the counties tended to stagnate or even decrease. The reason was mainly attributed to the reduced net returns due to the quickly rising costs of labor and production material. To stimulate yield growth, it is essential to increase the profitability of maize by adopting appropriate policy measures to improve production efficiency. Keywords Maize · Trend pattern · Yield stagnation · Net return · The north china plain
Introduction Yield stagnation in grain crops including rice (Oryza sativa L.), maize, wheat (Triticum aestivum L.), and soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merr.] has been reported worldwide at national, provincial, and regional scales (Grassini et al. 2013; Hafner 2003; Lin and Huybers 2012; Ray et al. 2012; Wei et al. 2015). Hafner (2003) analyzed the yield changes in maize, wheat, and rice in 188 nations for the period of 1961–2001, finding that the yields in about 25% of countries had not improved or had even declined slightly. Similar trends were found in some European and other developed countries, where the yield growth of cereal crops including maize slowed down dramatically or stagnated during * Changhe Lu [email protected] 1
Key Laboratory of Land Surface Pattern and Simulation, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, CAS, Beijing 100101, China
College of Resources and Environment, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
2
1990–2008 (Brisson et al. 2010). Another study reported that during 1961–2008, over 27% of the global maize planting area showed a stagnating trend in the yield (Ray et al. 2012). In China, one study indicated that maize yield in 48.3% of counties
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