Crop planting dates: an analysis of global patterns

ABSTRACT Aim To assemble a data set of global crop planting and harvesting dates for 19 major crops, explore spatial relationships between planting date and climate for two of them, and compare our analysis with a review of the literature on factors that drive decisions on planting dates. Location Global. Methods We digitized and georeferenced existing data on crop planting and harvesting dates from six sources. We then examined relationships between planting dates and temperature, precipitation and potential evapotranspiration using 30‐year average climatologies from the Climatic Research Unit, University of East Anglia (CRU CL 2.0). Results We present global planting date patterns for maize, spring wheat and…

• NS
  National Science Foundation
• NA
  National Aeronautics and Space Administration
• UE
  U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
• UO
  University of Wisconsin-Madison
• NS
  Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada