Research projects

    Project GT Hartberg: Spatial modeling of grassland yields taking weather influences into account

    Project manager

    Schaumberger Andreas, Dr.

    Mag. MSc. Andreas Schaumberger

    Grassland management and cultural landscape

    The yield on grassland areas is determined by an extremely diverse management and depends on different location factors. The weather and the resulting water availability as one of these location factors is the reason for strongly fluctuating annual yields for all crop production, especially in regions with a higher risk of drought.

    Yield data from experiments lasting several years at various locations in Austria were combined with weather and soil data in a GIS in order to establish a connection between yield and weather or water availability. A statistical model takes into account the possible water limitation and, taking temperature and radiation into account, estimates the growth-related grassland yields with a coefficient of determination of 0.63 and a mean error of 669 kg dry matter per hectare, which corresponds to a medium-strong connection. The model developed here is suitable for the regional representation of relative yield deviations of individual annual yields, especially in extremely dry years, to a long-term average.