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Abstract Since 1993, the JRC has put in operation a crop monitoring and yield forecasting system for Europe, the results of which are published in the JRC MARS Bulletin (currently every month). This paper outlines how the agro-meteorological analyses, country-specific overviews of crop conditions, and crop yield forecasts reported in the Bulletin are used and how these respond to the diverse needs of different types of stakeholders. Stakeholders from more than 32 countries download the JRC MARS Bulletin, in peak-season up to 1500 downloads occur in the first days after publication. The readership of the Bulletin is diverse, coming from governments (e.g. Ministries of Agriculture), private companies (e.g. commodity traders, banking), media, and research and academia. On the list of stakeholders that want to be notified of the release of the Bulletin, roughly 37% originate from business, 35% from research and development, 22% from government, and 6% from the media. The primary user is the Directorate General for Agriculture and Rural Development (DG-AGRI) of the European Commission , which uses the forecasts to quantify the production estimates for crop supply balance sheets and to identify regions with exceptional (mostly weather related) challenges that might require a policy response. The information for wheat, maize and rice is shared through the Agricultural Market Information System (AMIS) thus contributing to increased global market transparency and better governance of agriculture and food policies. The largest business use is in market information, financial, and consultancy services, followed by commodity trading. Examples of use in media reports as well as online feedback to those, e.g. by farmer's organizations, are also presented. Downloads of the Bulletin peak in the month before harvest at the time when the forecasts can be of most value for stakeholder decision-making. Highlights • The primary user of crop yield forecasts & the JRC MARS Bulletin is DG-AGRI. • Stakeholders from more than 32 countries download the JRC MARS Bulletin. • Stakeholders are from business (37%), R&D (35%), government (22%), and media (6%). • Bulletin & yield forecast downloads (up to ~1500) peak in the month before harvest. • Knowledge gaps on actual use, perceived usefulness, impacts of crop forecasts exist. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The impact of extreme events (such as prolonged droughts, heat waves, cold shocks and frost) is poorly represented by most of the existing yield forecasting systems. Two new model-based approaches that account for the impact of extreme weather events on crop production are presented as a way to improve yield forecasts, both based on the Crop Growth Monitoring System (CGMS) of the European Commission. A first approach includes simple relations – consistent with the degree of complexity of the most generic crop simulators – to explicitly model the impact of these events on leaf development and yield formation. A second approach is a hybrid system which adds selected agro-climatic indicators (accounting for drought and cold/heat stress) to the previous one. The new proposed methods, together with the CGMS-standard approach and a system exclusively based on selected agro-climatic indicators, were evaluated in a comparative fashion for their forecasting reliability. The four systems were assessed for the main micro- and macro-thermal cereal crops grown in highly productive European countries. The workflow included the statistical post-processing of model outputs aggregated at national level with historical series (1995–2013) of official yields, followed by a cross-validation for forecasting events triggered at flowering, maturity and at an intermediate stage. With the system based on agro-climatic indicators, satisfactory performances were limited to microthermal crops grown in Mediterranean environments (i.e. crop production systems mainly driven by rainfall distribution). Compared to CGMS-standard system, the newly proposed approaches increased the forecasting reliability in 94% of the combinations crop × country × forecasting moment. In particular, the explicit simulation of the impact of extreme events explained a large part of the inter-annual variability (up to +44% for spring barley in Poland), while the addition of agro-climatic indicators to the workflow mostly added accuracy to an already satisfactory forecasting system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Regional-to-global studies of hydrology, water availability and water use, and their interaction with agricultural production and food security require accurate information on the location and extent of irrigated croplands. In this study, we derive the European Irrigation Map for the year 2010 (EIM2010) - underpinned by the agricultural census conducted in the European Union in 2010. The map contains 14 irrigated crop classes as well as total irrigable and irrigated areas centred on the year 2010. The thematic resolution of the map is tailored specifically to European agriculture, and contains most relevant staple crops (e.g. maize, rice, potato, other cereals) as well as major permanent crops (e.g. irrigated olive orchards and vineyards). The map was created using a consistent methodology and data gathered across the European Union Member States and the UK, and therefore provides comparable and representative information across the continental domain. The input data used to construct the map consisted of farm-level records on irrigated areas and total crop areas, collected during the 2010 agricultural census and aggregated to 10 km x 10 km grid, as well as regional-level statistics (at NUTS2 level) on irrigated areas by crop type. A custom-developed disaggregation algorithm was used to distribute the regional-level statistics into the 10 km x 10 km grid. Evaluation of the map against independent reference geospatial data indicated satisfactory agreement for both large-scale spatial patterns as well as specific grid cell values for the main crop production regions. The EIM2010 is publicly available and provides valuable inputs for large scale modelling applications involving irrigated agriculture. • European Irrigation Map was developed for agricultural and hydrological modelling. • Map was created based on agricultural census data for the year 2010. • Map contains total irrigated and irrigable areas and 14 irrigated crop classes. • The strengths and weaknesses of the map based on statistical data are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Wheat is Europe''s dominant crop in terms of land use in the European Union (EU25). Most of this wheat area is sown in autumn, i.e., winter wheat in all EU25 countries, apart from southern Italy, southern Spain and most of Portugal, where spring wheat varieties are sown in late autumn. We evaluated the strengths and limitations of a regional implementation of the crop growth model WOFOST implemented in the Crop Growth Monitoring System (CGMS) for calculating yield gaps of autumn-sown wheat across the EU25. Normally, CGMS is used to assess growing conditions and to calculate timely and quantitative yield forecasts for the main crops in Europe. Plausibility of growth simulations by CGMS in terms of leaf area, total biomass and harvest index were evaluated and simulated yields were compared with those from other global studies. This study shows that water-limited autumn-sown wheat yields, being the most relevant benchmark for the largely rain fed wheat cultivation in Europe, are plausible for most parts of the EU25 and can be used to calculate yield gaps with some precision. In parts of southern Europe unrealistic simulated harvest index, maximum leaf area index and biomass values were found which are mainly caused by wrong values of phenology related crop parameters. Furthermore CGMS slightly underestimates potential and water-limited yields, which calls for a calibration using new field experiments with recent cultivars. Estimated yield gap is between 2 and 4tha−1 in main parts of the EU25, is smaller north-western Europe and highest in Portugal. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

• Crop conditions around flowering are able to explain maize yield response to changes in sowing dates and cultivars. • Early sowing can optimize yields under current climate conditions. • Different yield modelling approaches agree on an average yield reduction of 14 %–17 % in 2041–2060. • Sowing date and cultivar play a limited role in offsetting the negative impacts of climate change on maize yield. Understanding, and then modelling, the effects of sowing date and cultivar on maize yield is essential to develop appropriate climate change adaptation strategies. Here we test the WOFOST model and a hybrid model, based on physiological crop conditions around flowering, against observed data collected during 4 years of field experiments in a Mediterranean environment under fully irrigated conditions. We simulate sowing date and cultivar responses by using 45-year historical meteorological records from the experimental weather station and future climate conditions till 2060 as projected by a set of regional climate models. Both WOFOST and the hybrid approach reveal good performance in simulating average maize yield. However, the hybrid one outperforms WOFOST with respect to its responsiveness to changes in sowing date and cultivar. These findings, besides stressing the importance of crop conditions around flowering in determining maize yield, point to lower yields (14 %–17 %, average reduction) under future climate conditions. The estimated losses may only be partially offset by changes in phenology and sowing dates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]