Yield Gaps in Wheat: Path to Enhancing Productivity

Wheat production is required to supply food for the world’s population, and increases in production will be necessary to feed the expanding population. Estimates show that production must increase by 1 billion metric tons to meet this demand. One method to meet future demand is to increase wheat yields by reducing the gap between actual and potential yields. Potential yields represent an optimum set of conditions, and a more realistic metric would be to compare actual yields with attainable yields, where these yields represent years in the record where there is no obvious limitation. This study was conducted to evaluate the yield trends, attainable yields, and yield gaps for the 10 largest wheat producing countries in the world and more localized yield statistics at the state or county level. These data were assembled from available government sources. Attainable yield was determined using an upper quantile analysis to define the upper frontier of yields over the period of record and yield gaps calculated as the difference between attainable yield and actual yield for each year and expressed as a percentage of the attainable yield. In all countries, attainable yield increase over time was larger than the yield trend indicating the technological advances in genetics and agronomic practices were increasing attainable yield. Yield gaps have not shown a decrease over time and reflect that weather during the growing season remains the primary limitation to production. Yield gap closure will require that local producers adopt practices that increase their climate resilience in wheat production systems.