From data to harvest: Leveraging ensemble machine learning for enhanced crop yield predictions across Canada amidst climate change
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Accurate crop yield predictions are crucial for farmers and policymakers. Despite the widespread use of ensemble machine learning (ML) models in computer science, their application in crop yield prediction remains relatively underexplored. This study, conducted in Canada, aims to assess the potential of five distinct ensemble ML models-Adaptive Boosting (AdaBoost), Gradient Boosting Machine (GBM), XGBoost, LightGBM, and Random Forest (RF)-in predicting crop yields chosen for their ability to manage complex datasets and their strong performance potential. The study integrated various factors, including climate variables, satellite-derived vegetation indices, soil characteristics, and honeybee census data. Data preparation comprised two main steps: first, climate variables were interpolated and averaged for croplands in ArcGIS Pro, along with averaging vegetation indices and soil characteristics. Honeybee census data was also incorporated. Second, the data was organized in Python to create a structured format for models' input. The models' accuracy was assessed using Root Mean Squared Error (RMSE), R-squared, and Mean Absolute Error (MAE). XGBoost emerged as the most accurate model, with the lowest MAE (68.70 for canola and 39.47 for soybeans), lowest RMSE (119.48 for canola and 102.39 for soybeans), and highest R-squared values (0.95 for canola and 0.96 for soybeans) on the test dataset. The study also assessed crop yields under various climate change scenarios, finding minimal variations across the scenarios, but significant negative impacts on canola and soybean yields across Canada. Honeybee colonies were identified as the most influential factor on crop yields, contributing 52.34 % to canola and 57.18 % to soybean yields. This research provides detailed crop yield maps of canola and soybeans at the Census Consolidated Subdivisions (CCS) level across Canada's agricultural landscape, offering valuable forecasts for localized decision-making. Additionally, it offers a proactive strategy for climate change preparedness, assisting farmers and stakeholders optimise resource allocation and manage risks effectively.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".