A comprehensive UK crop yield dataset incorporating satellite, weather, and soil type information.

Abstract

Agricultural research increasingly relies on data-driven approaches for crop yield prediction that complement more established crop growth models, including machine learning techniques. However, these approaches rely on large training datasets. Here, we present the Crop Yields, Climate, Soils, and Satellites (CYCleSS) dataset, a large-scale crop yield dataset derived from precision yield data for 934 fields across England on which a variety of crops are grown. In addition, the data also contains satellite-derived remote sensing data, weather data, and data on soil type, all aligned at a grid resolution of 10 km. Weather data is available at a daily temporal resolution, satellite data at 5-day resolution, while crop yield data is available at yearly resolution. This effort has been made possible through careful anonymisation of the yield data while preserving the alignment with remote sensing, weather, and soil data. This data will be useful both to train machine learning models of yield prediction as well as to parameterize mechanistic crop growth models. Furthermore, the anonymisation procedure itself will be of interest to the research community, as it represents a solution to a common problem on the interface of agricultural research and farming practice.