Field edges enhance crop yields in wet regions but suppress yields in dry regions across the United States

Résumé fourni par la source

Ensuring food security under climate change is a critical challenge for humanity. Edge effects likely play an important role in determining farm yields, as agricultural edges differ in their microenvironmental conditions and ecological processes compared with field interiors. However, the magnitude and spatial variation of such effects remain poorly understood. Here, we used the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) as a proxy for crop yield to estimate edge effects for two major US crops, corn and soybeans. We found that crop yields were higher near field edges in the humid eastern US and lower in the drier western US, a pattern likely driven by precipitation and surrounding land cover, especially forests. A counterfactual simulation showed that optimized edge configurations could generate annual gains of nearly 900 million USD for corn and 500 million USD for soybeans, highlighting strategic field-boundary management as an underutilized lever for enhancing yields and economic returns.

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