Causality between climatic and soil factors on Italian ryegrass yield in paddy field via climate and soil big data

This study aimed to identify the causality between climatic and soil variables affecting the yield of Italian ryegrass (Lolium multiflorum Lam., IRG) in the paddy field by constructing the pathways via structure equation model. The IRG data (n = 133) was collected from the National Agricultural Cooperative Federation (1992–2013). The climatic variables were accumulated temperature, growing days and precipitation amount from the weather information system of Korea Meteorological Administration, and soil variables were effective soil depth, slope, gravel content and drainage class as soil physical properties from the soil information system of Rural Development Administration. In general, IRG cultivation by the rice-rotation system in paddy field is important and unique in East Asia because it contributes to the increase of income by cultivating IRG during agricultural off-season. As a result, the seasonal effects of accumulated temperature and growing days of autumn and next spring were evident, furthermore, autumnal temperature and spring precipitation indirectly influenced yield through spring temperature. The effect of autumnal temperature, spring temperature, spring precipitation and soil physics factors were 0.62, 0.36, 0.23, and 0.16 in order (p < 0.05). Even though the relationship between soil physical and precipitation was not significant, it does not mean there was no association. Because the soil physical variables were categorical, their effects were weakly reflected even with scale adjustment by jitter transformation. We expected that this study could contribute to increasing IRG yield by presenting the causality of climatic and soil factors and could be extended to various factors.