Predicting maize yield in Zimbabwe using dry dekads derived from remotely sensed Vegetation Condition Index

Maize is a key crop contributing to food security in Southern Africa yet accurate estimates of maize yield prior to harvesting are scarce. Timely and accurate estimates of maize production are essential for ensuring food security by enabling actionable mitigation strategies and policies for prevention of food shortages. In this study, we regressed the number of dry dekads derived from VCI against official ground-based maize yield estimates to generate simple linear regression models for predicting maize yield throughout Zimbabwe over four seasons (2009–10, 2010–11, 2011–12, and 2012–13). The VCI was computed using Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) time series dataset from the SPOT VEGETATION sensor for the period 1998–2013. A significant negative linear relationship between number of dry dekads and maize yield was observed in each season. The variation in yield explained by the models ranged from 75% to 90%. The models were evaluated with official ground-based yield data that was not used to generate the models. There is a close match between the predicted yield and the official yield statistics with an error of 33%. The observed consistency in the negative relationship between number of dry dekads and ground-based estimates of maize yield as well as the high explanatory power of the regression models suggest that VCI-derived dry dekads could be used to predict maize yield before the end of the season thereby making it possible to plan strategies for dealing with food deficits or surpluses on time.