High Spatial Resolution for Crop Yield Prediction in Large Farming Systems: A Necessity or Additional Overhead

Abstract

The availability of open-access satellite data and advancements in machine learning techniques has exhibited significant potential in crop yield prediction. In the context of large farming systems and county-level predictions, it is customary to rely on coarse-resolution satellite images. However, these images often lack the sufficient textural detail to accurately summarise spatial information. This research aims to evaluate the advantages of enhanced spatial resolution by conducting a comparative analysis between coarse-resolution, high-temporal-frequency MODIS data and relatively high-resolution, low-temporal-frequency Landsat data for predicting corn yield in the USA. We benchmark this comparison against several models in a spatial versus non-spatial input data context. Our results suggest that, the use of high-spatial resolution for county-level yield prediction in large farming systems is not beneficial and the models explored are unable to generalize well to drought-struck years.