Journal of the Indian Society of Remote Sensing (November 2018) 46(11):1823–1833

https://doi.org/10.1007/s12524-018-0839-2
(0123456789().,-volV)(0123456789().,-volV)

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Remote Sensing-Based Yield Forecasting for Sugarcane (Saccharum

officinarum L.) Crop in India
S. K. Dubey1 • A. S. Gavli1 • S. K. Yadav1 • Seema Sehgal1 • S. S. Ray1

Received: 8 May 2017 / Accepted: 10 August 2018 / Published online: 6 September 2018
Ó Indian Society of Remote Sensing 2018

Abstract
Early yield assessment at local, regional and national scales is a major requirement for various users such as agriculture
planners, policy makers, crop insurance companies and researchers. This current study explored a remote sensing-based
approach of predicting sugarcane yield, at district level, using Vegetation Condition Index (VCI), under the FASAL
programme of the Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers’ Welfare. 13-years’ historical database (2003–2015) of NDVI was
used to derive the VCI. NDVI products (MOD-13A2) of MODIS instrument on board Terra satellite at 16-day interval
from first fortnight of June to second fortnight of October (peak growing period) were used to calculate the VCI. Stepwise
regression technique was used to develop empirical models between VCI and historical yield of sugarcane over 52 major
sugarcane-growing districts in five states of India. For all the districts, the empirical models were found to be statistically
significant. A large number of statistical parameters were computed to evaluate the performance of VCI-based models in
predicting district-level sugarcane yield. Though there was variation in model performance in different states, overall, the
study showed the usefulness of VCI, which can be used as an input for operational sugarcane yield forecasting.

Keywords Vegetation Condition Index  Sugarcane  Remote sensing  Yield forecasting

Accurate forecasting of crop yield much before harvest is
crucial, especially in the country like India characterized
by weather uncertainties. In current prospects of changing
climate, increasing vulnerability and insecurity of food,
reliable crop forecasting may become a tool for ensuring
food security. Early yield assessment at regional and
national scales is becoming increasingly important to many
user-groups, e.g. agriculture planners and policy makers,
crop insurance companies and researchers community (Van
Wart et al. 2013; Dadhwal and Ray 2000). It enables
planners and decision makers to predict how much to
import in case of shortfall or to export in case of surplus.
Crop yield estimation in many countries is based on con-
ventional procedures of data collection through experi-
mentation. Such techniques are often subjective, costly,
A. S. Gavli, S. K. Yadav, Seema Sehgal: Deputed from
Randstad India Ltd.
& S. S. Ray
shibendu.ncfc@nic.in
1
Mahalanobis National Crop Forecast Centre (MNCFC), DAC
& FW, Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Near
Krishi Vistar Sadan, Pusa Campus, New Delhi 110012, India
time consuming and are prone to large errors due to
incomplete ground observations, leading to poor crop yield
assessment (Sapkota et al. 2016). Remotely sensed crop
data offer considerable opportunities for agricultural deci-
sion makers via the possible improvement in crop yield
predictions and crop loss assessment (Lobell 2013).
FASAL (Forecasting Agricultural output using Space,
Agro-meteorology and Land-based observations) is a major
programme of the Department of Agriculture, Cooperation
and Farmers’ Welfare, Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers
Welfare, aimed at pre-harvest crop production forecasting
at district, state and national level (Ray et al. 2014a, b).
Under FASAL project, crop area is estimated using remote
sensing data and yield is estimated, either using agro-me-
teorological, crop simulation or remote sensing-based
models. FASAL deals with 8 major crops of the country,
including the major cash crop sugarcane. Hence, there is a
need to develop remote sensing-based models for opera-
tional yield forecasting of sugarcane, at district level.
Assessment of crop condition with a newer and
advanced approach was made possible following the
advances in the satellite remote sensing technology (Xie
et al. 2008). The remote sensing-based approaches provide

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1824 Journal of the Indian Society of Remote Sensing (November 2018) 46(11):1823–1833
repeated measurements at different spatial scales and
spectral bandwidths which enable various vegetation
parameters, such as vegetation cover, leaf are index, frac-
tion absorbed photosynthetically active radiation, etc. to be
monitored with significant accuracy (North 2002). Several
remotely sensed indices, such as normalized difference
vegetation index (NDVI), normalized difference wetness
index (NDWI), Vegetation Condition Index (VCI) and
temperature condition index (TCI), have been developed
for agronomic monitoring (Prasad et al. 2006). These
indices are commonly used for drought detection, moni-
toring excessive soil wetness, assessment of weather
impacts on vegetation and evaluation of vegetation health
and productivity (Unganai and Kogan 1998; Dadhwal and
Ray 2000; Kogan et al. 2003; Singh et al. 2016). Vegeta-
tion Condition Index (VCI), as suggested by Kogan (1998),
is an indicator of the vigour of the vegetation cover, as a
function of NDVI minima and maxima for a given time
period and a given land area. It normalizes NDVI based on
its value over many years and results in a consistent index
for different land cover types. VCI has been considered as
an ideal candidate in the index-based insurance because it
is highly correlated with crop yields and hence able to
accurately track yield losses (Hochrainer-Stigler et al.
2014). Dubey et al. (2017) used VCI for district-level rice
(rabi season) yield estimation under the FASAL project.
They found that, in 22 districts out of 32 districts, the
relative deviation between government yield and VCI
estimated yield was lower than 10%.
Various techniques and remote sensing-based products
had been used for sugarcane yield forecasting (Mulianga
et al. 2013; Morel et al. 2014). In India, Rao et al. (2002)
have tested the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index
(NDVI) for yield estimation of sugarcane in Andhra Pra-
desh and reported the positive relationship between yields
of sugarcane with NDVI (r = 0.84). Similarly, a study was
conducted by Rahman and Robson (2016) in Bundaberg
Region of Australia by taking green normalized difference
vegetation index (GNDVI) derived from Landsat 30 m
resolution and a significant correlation with R2 of 0.69 was
observed.
Thus the above studies showed the usefulness of remote
sensing-based index VCI for crop yield estimation and also
the predictive capability of remote sensing-derived
parameters for sugarcane yield estimation. However, VCI
has not been tried for district-level sugarcane yield esti-
mation, in India. In this context, this current study was
carried out to evaluate the VCI for yield estimation of
sugarcane crop, which can be useful for operational crop
production forecasting, under FASAL project.
123
Data and Methodology
Study Area
The study was conducted for 52 major sugarcane-growing
districts of India distributed over five states. The states are
Gujarat (4 districts), Haryana (7), Karnataka (5), Maha-
rashtra (14) and Uttar Pradesh (22), as shown in Fig. 1.
Together, these states contribute 76.9 and 80.93% of total
sugarcane area and production of the country, respectively
(VSI 2011).
Information about the sugarcane in the study states is
given in Table 1. June to October is the peak growing
period of sugarcane in most of the states, except in
Maharashtra where sugarcane is planted in three seasons,
i.e. Pre-seasonal (October), Seasonal (December–January)
and Adsali (June–July). Among all the states, Maharashtra
has the highest variability of yield and also it has a wide
variation in planting pattern. However, almost all seasons’
planted sugarcane is available, as standing crop, during
June–October months. Therefore, in this study, we have
considered this major sugarcane-growing period, which
lies between June first fortnight and October second fort-
night, for all the study districts to carryout yield modelling.
Data Used and Methodology
Crop Map
Single-date Resourcesat-2 LISS-III (23.5 m resolution)
data were used for sugarcane acreage estimation. Wher-
ever, cloud-free LISS III data was not available, and
Landsat 8, OLI (30 m resolution) or Resourcesat-2 AWiFS
(56 m resolution) data were used. Dates of data acquisition
were October 4–November 13, 2015. Supervised classifi-
cation approach was followed using 428 ground truth (GT)
data collected by State Agriculture Departments and State
Remote Sensing Centers. After classification of sugarcane
crop using satellite data, state-wise crop maps were pre-
pared. These crops maps were used for generating crop-
specific vegetation indices for different districts.
Vegetation Index
MODIS NDVI product (MOD13A2), available at every
16 days at 1 km spatial resolution as a gridded level-3
product in the Sinusoidal projection from the period of
2003–2015, was used to derive the Vegetation Condition
Index. Level-II Land Use Land Cover (LULC) maps were
taken from National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC) for
the year 2012 which is available on 1:50,000 scale derived
using multitemporal Resourcesat 2 terrain corrected LISS
Journal of the Indian Society of Remote Sensing (November 2018) 46(11):1823–1833
Fig. 1 Study area showing the
selected districts for sugarcane
analysis
III data. District shape files were used for demarcation of
district boundary and calculation of district mean of NDVI.
Under ideal conditions of good rainfall, adequate
nutrients and management inputs, the crop in a region
could grow to its maximum vigour, producing maximum
NDVI for that year. On the contrary, in a drought year, less
rainfall and inadequate inputs result in very low NDVI.
This maximum and minimum NDVI are the conceivable
limits of the vegetation vigour, for a particular area and
period, over the several years considered. When the current
year NDVI is compared with the maximum and the
1825
minimum values, it helps in getting a fair idea of the pre-
sent status of vegetation compared to its trend.
Vegetation Condition Index (VCI) helps in isolating the
short-term weather signals in the NDVI from the long-term
ecological signal. The VCI of NDVI is defined as (Kogan
1998)
 
NDVIi  NDVImin
VCI ¼  100
NDVImax  NDVImin
where, NDVIi is the NDVI at current time, NDVImin is the
historical minimum NDVI for the same location and same
period, and NDVImax is the historical maximum NDVI.
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 1826

123
Table 1 General description of sugarcane in different states of India. aDirectorate of Economics and Statistics, Government of India, bSource Indian Council of Agricultural Research (Crop
Science Division), cSource Indian Sugar mills Association (ISMA)—http://www.indiansugar.com/uploads/Workshop-Micro-irrigation.pdf, dPurohit and Kaur (2016)
a b b c d d c
States DES yield (kg/ha) from 2010–11 Sowing period Harvesting Crop duration Water SW monsoon rainfall Rainfall Rainfall
to 2015–16 period (months) requirement (mm) departures consumed (%)
(ha-mm) 2016 (%)
Range Average CV (2016)
(%)

Gujarat 63,119–72,421 69,916 4.7 Dec–Feb Nov–Feb 11–12 NA 538.0 PrM: - 77 –

M: - 20
PoM: 107
Haryana 71,082–74,496 73,187 1.4 February–March Dec–March 10–12 1400–1600 337.5 PrM: - 43 30
M: - 27
PoM: - 79
Karnataka 84,075–93,752 89,013 3.7 Dec–March Dec–Feb 12–13 2000–2200 706.3 PrM: - 28 30
M: - 15
PoM: - 72
Maharashtra 74,650–85,217 81,072 5.7 Pre-seasonal Jan–Mar 13–14 2500–3500 1167.3 PrM: - 31 20
(October) Dec–Feb 12–13 M: 16
Seasonal Nov–Feb (next 18 PoM: - 22
(Dec–Jan) year)
Adsali
(Jun–Jul)
Uttar 56,727–64,000 60,464 3.7 February–March Nov–March 11–12 month 1400–1600 731.5 PrM: 48 45
Pradesh M: - 14
PoM: - 66
PrM Pre monsoon, M Monsoon, PoM Post monsoon
Journal of the Indian Society of Remote Sensing (November 2018) 46(11):1823–1833
Journal of the Indian Society of Remote Sensing (November 2018) 46(11):1823–1833 1827

In present study, 13-year historical database The root-mean-square error (RMSE) is a commonly used
(2003–2015) of NDVI was used to derive the VCI. The measure of difference between values predicted by a model
VCI images were overlaid with sugarcane crop maps to and the values actually observed. These individual differ-
generate VCI values specific to the crop. District-level ences are also called residuals, and the RMSE serves to
maps were overlaid on the VCI images to get average (of aggregate them into a single measure of predictive power.
all pixels in the district) VCI values for the districts. Thus, vffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
uP
un
fortnight sugarcane VCI values for each district, for u ðEsti  Obsi Þ2
t
13 years, were derived. RMSE ¼ i¼1 ð2Þ
District-wise historical yield (2003–2013) data of sug- n
arcane were taken from Directorate of Economics and RMSE value close to zero is considered to be optimal.
Statistics (DES), Government of India and the State Agri-
culture Departments. The yields were used as dependent 3. Root-mean-squared variation (RMSV)
variable to develop the model. Correlation analysis was It indicates how much the model succeeds to estimate the
carried out between fortnightly VCI values and the crop variability of the measures around the mean. RMSV is
yield. Empirical relation between yield and VCI for each defined by (Kobayashi and Salam 2000)
vffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
district was derived using stepwise multiple linear regres- uP
u n     2
sion technique, as defined by Agrawal (2011), using data u Esti  Est  Obsi  Obs
ti¼1
up to 2013. Stepwise regression is a method of fitting RMSV ¼ ð3Þ
regression models in which the choice of predictive vari- n
ables is carried out by an automatic procedure. In each step,
a variable is considered for addition to or subtraction from
the set of explanatory variables based on pre-specified 4. Normalized mean-square error (NMSE)
criterion (e.g. F value). For this purpose, SPSS v.16.0 NMSE emphasizes the scatter in the entire dataset. The
(statistical package) was used. The models developed for normalization by the product assures that the NMSE will
each district were used to estimate district-level sugarcane not be biased towards models that over predict or under
yield for 2015–16 using that year’s district-level VCI val- predict. Smaller values of NMSE denote better model
ues. The detailed methodology is described in the flow performance. NMSE is dimensionless and calculated using
diagram (Fig. 2). the following formula.
P
1 ni¼1 ðEst  ObsÞ2
Accuracy Assessment NMSE ¼ Pn ð4Þ
n i ðEst  ObsÞ

The accuracy of model predicted yield was checked against NMSE value closure to zero is considered to be optimal.
observed (from Directorate of Economics and Statistics or 5. Correlation coefficient (r)
State Agricultural Statistical Agencies) yield values using The correlation coefficient (r) measures the degree to
various statistical parameters, such as mean bias error which changes in the value of one variable (predicted
(Addiscott and Whitmore 1987), root-mean-square error yield) is associated with the changes in the value of another
(Fox 1981), root-mean-squared variation (Kobayashi and variable (actual yield). The value of r ranges between - 1
Salam 2000), normalized mean-squared error (Kumar et al. and ? 1. Ideally, for a good prediction, r should be close to
1993), correlation coefficient, fractional bias (Kumar et al. 1.
1993) and index of agreement (Willmott and Wicks 1980). P P P
The details of these parameters are given below. nð xyÞ  ð xÞð yÞ
r ¼ rhffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiiffi ð5Þ
P 2 P 2 pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
P 2 P 2 ffi
1. Mean bias error (MBE) n x  ð xÞ ½ n y  ð y Þ
This is the average of differences between predicted and
observed values. It can result either ? or - and being 0 is where n = number of observations, x = estimated yield and
the optimal. This is calculated as follows: y = observed yield.

1X N 6. Fractional bias (FB)

MBE ¼ ðEsti  Obsi Þ ð1Þ It is similar to mean bias, but it is normalized to make it
n i¼1
dimensionless. FB varies between ? 2 and - 2 with an
where n = number of observations; Est = estimated yield ideal value of zero for a good model. This is calculated as
and Obs = observed yield. follows:

2. Root-mean-squared error (RMSE)

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1828 Journal of the Indian Society of Remote Sensing (November 2018) 46(11):1823–1833

District
R2 LISS III / MODIS
yield Data
L8 OLI NDVI
2003-2015

Ground
Classiication
truth

Sugarcane Sugarcane Sugarcane

crop map Mask Crop NDVI

Time series
2003-2015

Current Year Maximum &

NDVI Minimum NDVI

VCI of NDVI

Stepwise Regression &

Model Development

Estimated
Yield

Fig. 2 Flow diagram showing the methodology for yield estimation using vegetation condition index (VCI) (R2—Resourcesat 2, L8—Landsat 8,
GT—Ground truth)

 
Est  Obs other states (Gujarat, Haryana and Karnataka) pooled
FB ¼ 2  ð6Þ together. This was done so, because of the number of study
Est þ Obs
districts were less in these other states, and hence, it would
not have been advisable to compute the statistical param-
7. Index of agreement (d) eters for less number of data points.

The index of agreement can detect additive and propor-

tional differences in the observed and predicted means and
variances. However, it is overly sensitive to extreme values
due to the squared differences (Legates and McCabe 1999).
The index of agreement (d) developed by Willmott (1981)
is a standardized measure of the degree of model prediction
error and varies between 0 and 1. A value of 1 indicates a
perfect match, and 0 indicates no agreement at all. This is
calculated as follows:
Pn
ðEsti  Obsi Þ2
i¼1
d ¼ 1 P n   ð7Þ
Esti  Obs þ Obsi  Obs 2
i¼1
The above statistics were estimated for three groups of
districts, i.e. districts under Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and
Results and Discussion
Sugarcane Vegetation Index
As mentioned in the methodology, sugarcane area esti-
mation and crop map preparation was carried out using
Resourcesat LISS III or Landsat 8 OLI data and the ground
truth, using a supervised maximum likelihood classifier.
The RMSE (%) of the state level remote sensing-based area
estimates compared with government’s estimates was
13.4%, and the correlations was 0.993. Since this current
paper mostly deals with yield estimation, we are not dis-
cussing details of area estimation results. The crop classi-
fication could result in generation of crop maps, an

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Journal of the Indian Society of Remote Sensing (November 2018) 46(11):1823–1833
example of which is given for the Uttar Pradesh State
(Fig. 3). Sugarcane maps of all five states were overlaid on
MODIS derived NDVI images to obtain sugarcane specific
NDVI values. The maps of 2015–16 were overlaid on
NDVI data of 13 years, with an assumption that there was
no major variation in the sugarcane-growing area over the
years.
The NDVI values of sugarcane areas of five major dis-
tricts of the five study states are shown in Fig. 4. The peak
NDVI values were achieved during the period August
second fortnight to October first fortnight. Yamunanagar
district of Haryana had the highest NDVI values indicating
highest canopy cover. In most of the districts, NDVI was
rising from June and gradually declining towards October
end. Hence, for yield modelling, vegetation index data of
June–October were used.
The VCI computed from long-term data of NDVI, for
these major districts, is shown in Fig. 5. The VCI ranges
between 0 and 100. VCI value 0 indicates that current
NDVI is equal to minimum of long-term data for similar
period (fortnight) and the 100 value indicates that that
current NDVI is equal to maximum of long-term data.
Generally, VCI value 60 and above indicates good crop
condition (Singh et al. 2016). In these five districts, during
most of the period, VCI remained above 60, indicating
good crop condition during 2015. Even though, 2015 was a
Fig. 3 Sugarcane crop map for Uttar Pradesh state, which was used to overlay on the NDVI images to compute sugarcane NDVI
1829
deficient monsoon year, the VCI was good may be due to
the fact that sugarcane is mostly grown as an irrigated crop.
Sugarcane crop under irrigation ranges from 94 to 100% in
the study states, with an average irrigation per cent of
sugarcane crop in the country being 95.3 (DES 2017).
Among all these five major sugarcane districts of different
states, Belagavi had highest average VCI (88.5), followed
by Solapur (75.5), Surat (62.9), Kheri (62.4) and Yamu-
nanagar (60.3).
Development of VCI-Based Yield Models
Stepwise regression approach was followed for developing
district-level empirical models between sugarcane yield
and VCI. The ranges of statistical parameters (R2, F value
and SEE) are presented in Table 2, while district-wise
values of R2, Level of significance and forecasted yield are
presented in map forms in Fig. 6. Out of the total 52 dis-
trict-level models developed, 26 districts had R2 above 0.6
(with highest being 0.86 for Karnal district of Haryana), 23
districts had R2 between 0.4–0.6 and only three districts
had R2 lower than 0.4 (lowest being 0.29 for Jalgaon dis-
trict of Maharashtra). Similarly, the empirical models were
statistically significant at 99% level for 28 districts, at 95%
level for 18 districts and at 90% level for six districts. Out
of these six districts of low significance level, four were in
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Fig. 4 Temporal profile of

normalized difference
vegetation index (NDVI), from
June first fortnight to October
second fortnight, of sugarcane
crop in different major districts
of the five study states

Fig. 5 Temporal profile of

vegetation condition index
(VCI), from June first fortnight
to October second fortnight, of
sugarcane crop in different
major districts of the five study
states

Table 2 State-wise ranges of

State No. of districts Range of statistical parameters
coefficient of determination
(R2), standard error of estimates R2 SEE F value
(SEE) and F values of empirical
models between VCI and Gujarat 4 0.40–0.78 1.69–10.04 4.72–24.84
district-level yield Haryana 7 0.33–0.78 4.02–11.02 4.53–19.28
Karnataka 5 0.26–0.85 3.45–9.90 2.53–39.91
Maharashtra 14 0.12–0.66 8.08–22.29 1.23–18.13
Uttar Pradesh 22 0.35–0.85 1.21–04.55 4.51–52.61

Maharashtra and one each in Gujarat and Haryana (Fig. 5).
Based on the values of R2, Standard Error of Estimation
and F values (Table 2), it can be concluded that the district-
level yield models were most significant for Karnataka,
followed by Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Haryana and Maha-
rashtra. This may be due to the fact that, among all the
states, Maharashtra had highest variability (CV value) in
sugarcane yield, as shown in Table 1. Also, as shown in
Table 1, Maharashtra had multiple season crops with
variable sowing period. Hence, the vegetation index data
from June to October may not have been sufficient for
sugarcane yield modelling. This is also evident from the
NDVI temporal profile (Fig. 4), where NDVI values of
Solapur district of Maharashtra did not decline and con-
tinued with higher value till October end, showing a longer
crop season.

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Journal of the Indian Society of Remote Sensing (November 2018) 46(11):1823–1833 1831

Fig. 6 R2, level of significance and yield map of sugarcane for different districts during model development

Accuracy Assessment of VCI-Based Yield
Estimation
Sugarcane yield forecasts were compared with government
yield estimates (obtained from state agricultural depart-
ments) using various statistical parameters, as described in
‘‘Accuracy Assessment’’ section. The parameters were
calculated separately for the districts of Maharashtra, Uttar
Pradesh and other states (Gujarat, Haryana and Karnataka).
The comparison of means of predicted and actual yields
showed that, except for Maharashtra, the differences are
within 10% (Table 3). The mean bias error (MBE) and the
root-mean-square error (RMSE) were lowest for Uttar
Pradesh, followed by other states and then Maharashtra.
Root-mean-square variation (RMSV) was similar for all
states. Normalized mean-square error (NMSE), which
should have been ideally close to zero, was very low for all
the states. The correlation coefficient between the esti-
mated and observed yields was highest for Uttar Pradesh,
though other states had also high correlation coefficients.
Similar results are seen in the scatterplots of yield values of
different states in Fig. 7. Fractional bias was also low
(close to zero) for all the states. Willmott’s index of
agreement (d), which should be close to 1 for proper
matching, was 0.85 and above for all the states, with Uttar
Pradesh having the highest value of 0.91.
Overall, the above results showed that the VCI-based
yield models made satisfactory predictions of district-level
sugarcane yield for all states. However, among the states,
the statistical accuracy was highest for Uttar Pradesh and
lowest for Maharashtra. The reason for comparatively
lower accuracy for Maharashtra has already been explained
in ‘‘Development of VCI based Yield Models’’ section.

Table 3 Statistical parameters

S. No Index Maharashtra Uttar Pradesh Other states
showing the comparison of
district-level predicted and 1 Mean predicted yield (t/ha) 72.7 59.7 79.7
observed yields of sugarcane
2 Mean observed yield (t/ha) 61.6 66.2 72.7
3 MBE 11.05 - 6.41 6.93
4 RMSE 17.10 7.12 13.18
5 RMSV 13.69 13.69 11.21
6 NMSE 0.006 0.001 0.002
7 r 0.827 0.912 0.796
8 FB 0.16 - 0.10 0.09
9 d 0.85 0.91 0.85

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Conclusion

This study was carried out to explore the suitability of

satellite remote sensing-based index for operational dis-
trict-level sugarcane yield forecasting. The Vegetation
Condition Index (VCI) derived from long-term low-reso-
lution satellite data was found to explain the sugarcane
yield variability up to 86%, in some cases. In majority of
cases, the variability explained was more than 60%. When
compared with the observed district-level yield, through
various statistical parameters, the performance of the VCI-
based models was also found to be highly satisfactory.
Hence, it can be used as an operational predictor for the
estimation of sugarcane crop yield. However, in some
districts, the relation between VCI and yield was poor. For
those situations, use of longer period (beyond October)
satellite data and other meteorological parameters may
improve the accuracy. The use of other vegetation indices,
such as VCI of normalized difference wetness index
(NDWI) in conjunction with VCI of NDVI, can also assist
in generating more accurate results (Singh et al. 2016). It
should also be noted that the MODIS data sets used in this
study are of coarse resolution (1000 m), though it was
considered appropriate because of availability of long-term
and calibrated data. After having a long-term NDVI dataset
of Resourcesat 2 AWiFS (56 m resolution), the VCI-based
model accuracy may improve further.

Acknowledgements The work was carried out under the FASAL

project of Directorate of Economics & Statistics of Department of
Agriculture, Cooperation & Farmers’ Welfare (DAC & FW). Authors
are thankful to the Secretary, DAC & FW Dr. S. K. Pattanayak and
the Joint Secretary, Sh. K. Srinivas for their strong support for the
work. Data provided by the State Agriculture Departments are
thankfully acknowledged.

Fig. 7 Comparison of predicted and actual district-level yields of
sugarcane for Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and other states
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