Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 117 (2006) 22–28

www.elsevier.com/locate/agee

How far might medium-term weather forecasts improve nitrogen

fertiliser use and benefit arable farming in the England and Wales?
A.G. Dailey a, J.U. Smith b, A.P. Whitmore a,*
a
Rothamsted Research, Harpenden, Hertfordshire AL5 2JQ, UK
b
Department of Plant and Soil Science, University of Aberdeen, UK
Received 17 August 2005; received in revised form 12 February 2006; accepted 2 March 2006
Available online 18 April 2006

Abstract

Because of the interest in the value of medium-term weather forecasts to UK agriculture, we attempt to quantify this value for N fertiliser
use with arable crops. Model systems such as SUNDIAL provide arable N fertiliser advice by modelling the N supply from soil, but poor
knowledge of future weather reduces accuracy. Aweather generator was used to produce sets of simulated weather of a range of accuracies and
durations, for 10 regions in England and Wales. In a series of computer simulations, we tested the effect of prior knowledge of weather
following the date of N fertiliser application on the efficiency of use of applications using SUNDIAL. The changes in N leaching,
denitrification and crop N uptake due to the forecast quality were calculated. Yield and gross profit changes were estimated from N uptake, for
the arable industry in England and Wales.
Changes in losses were small. With a perfect forecast, there was a small decrease in leaching (approximately 1 kg N ha
1), and still less
change in denitrification. The increase in crop uptake due to a perfect 27-week weather forecast was 6 kg N ha
1, and the increase in farm
profit in England and Wales amounted to £68M per annum.
With more accurate forecasts, the system can reduce the risk of under-application of N. A perfect 3-week forecast would increase uptake
by an average of 2 kg N ha
1, and increase profit nationally by £23M per annum but have negligible impact on losses. These improvements
appear to be systematic and could be expected to be achieved with any recommendation system that makes explicit use of post-application
weather.
# 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Nitrogen management; Nitrogen losses; Economic value; Arable farming; Computer model; Optimised fertiliser advice

1. Introduction readily to nitrogen and it is a relatively cheap input. Even

Farming is under diverse pressures: on the one hand there
are environmental norms to be met (Pretty et al., 2001), on
the other hand profitability has declined dramatically (Defra,
2003). Nitrogen fertiliser applications are an extremely
difficult issue that farmers must balance between these two
pressures. Nitrate leaching into ground and surface water
must be kept below tight limits in order to comply with EU
water quality legislation (Anon, 2000). Loss of nitrous oxide
(N2O) through denitrification has serious consequences for
global warming (IPCC, 2001). However, most crops respond
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +44 1582 763133; fax: +44 1582 760981.
E-mail address: andy.whitmore@bbsrc.ac.uk (A.P. Whitmore).
though losses of N (leaching or denitrification) increase
rapidly with applications of N beyond the physiological
optimum, farmers have tended to over apply N (e.g.
Sylvester-Bradley et al., 1987; Whitmore and Van Noord-
wijk, 1995) because the consequence of applying too little
was a large loss of farm yield (and income) whereas a major
consequence of applying too much is off-farm diffuse
pollution that has little if any cost to the farmer.
Systems such as SUNDIAL (Bradbury et al., 1993; Smith
et al., 1996) are intended to optimise N fertiliser advice for
farmers by taking full account of the N that can be supplied
from soil, including mineralisation that occurs post-
application. In this way, yields can be maximised and
nitrogen pollution minimised. In general, SUNDIAL has

0167-8809/$ – see front matter # 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.agee.2006.03.004
 A.G. Dailey et al. / Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 117 (2006) 22–28
been shown to agree well with RB209 (MAFF, 2000), the
current Defra-sponsored recommendation system for N
(ADAS, 2005). Predictions from SUNDIAL, however, are
dependent on the estimates of the weather post-application
and in general the estimated and actual weather will differ.
Thus the fertiliser advice may turn out to be less than
optimal. If too much N is applied, losses to the environment
may increase. Under application may result in a shortfall in
yield and profit.
There is potential for medium-term weather forecasts to
be made available to the farming community and it seems
likely that such information might improve the accuracy
with which farmers can obtain site and season-specific
fertiliser advice using fertiliser recommendation systems
such as SUNDIAL. In the UK, an exercise known as
Foresight (Anon, 2001) has tried to suggest the value of
research into new areas that could benefit the economy. One
aspect of this was whether or not it could be worthwhile
developing a capability for medium-term weather forecasts
of two or three months (Anon, 2001). The objective of this
article is to quantify the potential of medium-term forecasts
to improve the accuracy and benefit of nitrogen fertiliser
recommendations using SUNDIAL as an example. The
analysis carried out in this project reflects the avoided loss of
yield or reduction in loss of N (denitrification or leaching)
that can come about with increasing prior knowledge of
weather if SUNDIAL is used to provide fertiliser advice. It is
with this standpoint in mind that we examined the potential
of medium-term weather forecasts to reduce nitrogen
pollution and to contribute to the farming economy in
England and Wales.
2. Materials and methods
SUNDIAL, in common with other N recommendation
systems, suggests a level of N application on the basis of
assumptions about the weather between application and
harvest. Unlike most N recommendation systems, however,
SUNDIAL does this explicitly with a sequence of expected
weather. This expected weather is nonetheless an assump-
tion, so by repeating the simulations to harvest with
sequences of weather that differed from the expected
weather in a predetermined manner (see below), we could
make the expected weather represent a range of forecasts of
different accuracies and durations.
2.1. The weather generator
A weather generator (Dailey et al., 2005) was used to
produce series of weekly values for rain, evapotranspiration
(ET) and the weekly mean of daily mean temperature (T)
required by SUNDIAL. The generator is controlled by
characteristic parameters that describe the weather for a
particular location, such that the data generated is
statistically similar to observed weather at that location.
23
The parameters describing rainfall were derived from 95
weather stations in England and Wales, each having at least
20 years’ of data. The parameters describing ET and T were
derived from a subset of 34 sites reporting ET and T for 20 or
more years (Dailey et al., 2005).
Two sets of weather data were generated. The first series
represents expected weather, which is the weather used to
optimise SUNDIAL at the time a decision on fertiliser
application needs to be made; the second series, which
deviates from the first, represents realised weather. These
terms, expected and realised weather will be used throughout.
The extent of the deviation of the realised series from the
expected is specified by a parameter, w, which has a value
between 0 and 1. A value of 1 signifies no deviation of the
realised weather from the expected; in other words the
expected weather is a ‘‘perfect’’ forecast. A lower value of w
signifies that the expected weather, used in SUNDIAL, is a
forecast of correspondingly lower accuracy. By increasing w
over the range of 0–1, prior knowledge of the weather is
increased from zero to complete knowledge. Reliability of
prior knowledge is one issue, however. The other is the
duration of the reliability of that prior knowledge. We
examined the effect of having prior knowledge of a given
accuracy (w = 0–1) for durations of 1, 3, 5, 7, 9 and 27 weeks.
In order to assess the benefits of prior knowledge of weather,
we generated 80 different sequences of weather correspond-
ing to 10 different weather stations in England and Wales.
2.2. Generation of rainfall
The weather generator for a particular location is based
on a cumulative density function (CDF) of weekly amounts
of rain for each of the 13 4-week periods of the year. This
generator (Dailey et al., 2005) is of a kind sometimes known
as a Richardson type (Richardson, 1981). A rain amount is
generated by first producing a random number (a uniform
deviate in the range 0–1), and transforming to rainfall
amount using the CDF. Without further modification the
transformed series would be expected rain. The random
series, Rr, used for realised rain is given by
Rr ¼ Re þ Ri ð1
’Þ (1)
where Re is the random series used for expected rain and Ri is a
different, independent random series. Rr is constrained to the
range 0–1. Persistence is implemented as a first order Markov
chain (Gabriel and Neumann, 1962) based on the observed
probability of 0.57 across the UK that two consecutive weeks
are both dry or both wet (Dailey et al., 2005). The resultant
random numbers are transformed to rain amounts using the
CDF of rainfall at the weather station of interest.
2.3. Generation of ET and T
The long-term weekly amounts and standard deviations
of evapotranspiration (ET) and weekly means and standard
24 A.G. Dailey et al. / Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 117 (2006) 22–28
deviations of temperature (T) at a particular location are each
parameterised as a single-term Fourier series. For tempera-
ture this is
Tt ¼ a sinðbtÞ
where Tt is the seasonal mean temperature at time t, and a and b
are constants. A process that generates a series of residuals for
ET and T was suggested by Matalas (1967), and was modified
in our weekly weather generator (Dailey et al., 2005) to
provide a description of the correlation between, and the
persistence of, temperature and evaporation. There is, for
instance, an increased probability that a warmer than average
week will coincide with above average evapotranspiration,
and be followed by another warm week. The expected weather
is first generated by adding these residuals to the Fourier series
(2) as described by Richardson (1981). To generate the
realised weather, a new series of residuals is generated that
tracks the original series, but deviates from it by a random
amount with an average magnitude dependent on w. The
realised ET and T are calculated by adding the new series of
residuals to (2). Full details and testing of the weather gen-
erator and of its evaluation can be found in Dailey et al. (2005).
2.4. SUNDIAL
The SUNDIAL Fertiliser Recommendation System
(SUNDIAL-FRS, Smith et al., 1996) uses a computer
simulation model (Bradbury et al., 1993) of N turnover in
soil to estimate the supply and loss of N to a number of
arable crops. For this work, SUNDIAL used potential yield
and weather data for the location to simulate up to the date at
which fertiliser is to be applied. Then using the expected
weather for the period up to harvest, the system optimised
the amount of fertiliser that should be applied for the
expected conditions. A second series of simulations was
then performed using this same fertiliser recommendation.
This time, however, realised weather for the period
following fertiliser application was used with different
degrees of prior knowledge (achieved by setting w to 0.1, 0.2,
0.3, 0.5, 0.7) and different durations of that prior knowledge
of 0, 1, 3, 7, 9 or 27 weeks. For the remainder of the
simulation until harvest, realised weather data that
represents no prior knowledge was used. For each
simulation, results for leaching, denitrification and crop
uptake of nitrogen were obtained.
Table 1
Climate regions used in the simulations
Climate Temperature Rainfall
(mean annual 8C) (annual mm)
Cool wet 8.8 1034
Cool dry 9.1 597
Moderate 9.3 656
Warm wet 10.2 851
Warm dry 10.0 584
Data from two weather stations representative of each region was used.
Three soil types, that are the default soils in the
SUNDIAL model, were used in this project: sand, loam
and clay containing 10, 23 and 40% clay, respectively. Ten
weather stations having at least 20 years of records were
(2)
chosen for the simulations to represent wet, moderate
rainfall and dry regions and warm, moderate or cool
conditions (Table 1). These ten stations represent the range
of conditions found in England and Wales and are
geographically spread throughout the countries.
We took the nine Government Office Regions of England
(e.g. Defra, 2002), and separate data for Wales. However, we
combined the London and the South East regions, giving
nine in all. One, or in the case of the South West two,
appropriate weather stations were allocated to represent
each region. The regional results were then combined
according to climate into five general categories (Table 1).
Results were weighted by the extent of cropping in each of
the regions.
Four crops were investigated to represent major classes of
arable crops grown in England and Wales: (i) a winter cereal,
winter wheat; (ii) a spring sown cereal, spring barley; (iii) a
high nitrogen residue crop winter oil seed rape (osr); (iv) a
shallow-rooting crop, potatoes. The potential yields and dates
of establishment and harvest of the crops used in the
simulations are shown in Table 2. Winter oilseed rape had a
30 kg dressing of fertiliser nitrogen at drilling. For all
simulations, the crop preceding the crop of interest was winter
wheat. The total application of fertiliser nitrogen to the
preceding crop was 160 kg for sand, 220 kg for loam and for
clay in wet or moderate rainfall locations, and 180 kg for clay
soils in dry locations. These recommendations were taken
from current fertiliser advice, RB209 (MAFF, 2000), and thus
represent the actions likely to be taken by local farmers.
SUNDIAL does not predict yield, but if the potential uptake
is reduced for any reason, yield is reduced. This loss of yield
and losses to the environment by leaching and denitrification
are the yardsticks by which we assess the value of access to
medium-term weather forecasts. As a context in which to
interpret these losses, Table 3 gives the results from the
baseline simulations using the expected weather.
2.5. Estimation of economic benefits
The benefits to the farmer in terms of avoided loss of
yield were calculated using the following sources of
Corresponding Area cropped to the crops
Defra regions used in this study (ha)
Wales and North West 126498
North East, Yorkshire and Humberside 573253
East and West Midlands 885167
South West 371634
East and South East and London 1248747
 A.G. Dailey et al. / Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 117 (2006) 22–28 25

Table 2
Potential yield (tonnes ha
1) and dates of establishment and harvest of the crops used in the simulations
Crop Potential yield Dates Area of crop in England
Sand Loam or clay Establish Harvest and Wales (ha)

Winter wheat 8.0 9.0 8 October 12 August 1886837

Spring barley 5.5 6.0 18 February 12 August 870212
Winter oilseed rape 3.5 3.5 3 September 5 August 325924
Main potatoes 42.5 42.5 1 April 30 September 122326

Table 3 benefit most, having the largest decreases in leaching with

Mean simulated amounts of nitrogen (kg N ha
1) by soil and region applied increased prior knowledge (Table 4). The winter crops
as fertiliser, lost, or taken up by the crop
experience the largest, and spring crops the smallest,
Crop Fertiliser Denitri- Leaching Crop
reduction in leaching (Table 5). There is much variation
applied fication uptake
between years but even in the most extreme circumstances
Winter wheat 172 8 17 200
the maximum level of prior knowledge did not decrease
Spring barley 68 7 19 133
Winter oilseed rape 169 6 8 197 leaching by more than 5.4 kg N ha
1. These decreases in
Potatoes 88 8 19 178 leaching are unlikely to be detectable by measurement
against background losses.

information. Product prices for April 2002 were obtained 3.2. Crop N offtake
from Farmers Weekly (5 April 2002); nitrogen and dry
matter content for oilseed rape from A.J. Macdonald (RRes, Crop N offtakes increased with forecast quality relative to
personal communication); crude protein and dry matter offtakes obtained with no prior knowledge (Fig. 1). With
contents for other crops from Agro Business Consultants knowledge of the weather up to 3 weeks in advance that is
(1998); crop areas for England from Defra (2002); crop 60% accurate, an increase of 1 kg N ha
1 on average can be
areas for Wales, year 2001 from John Bleasdale, Agricul- expected in crop uptake in England and Wales. A forecast
tural Statistics, Welsh Assembly Government (personal that is 100% accurate 3 weeks into the future could push that
communication). gain up to 2 kg N ha
1. A 7 weeks forecast that is 70 or 80%
Results are expressed, in general, as the benefit from reliable could increase N offtake (or rather, avoided shortfall
having prior knowledge of a given accuracy of the weather in N offtake) by up to 2 kg N ha
1. These amounts are not
forecast. The benefit has been quantified as avoided loss of large but are averaged, systematic effects over the 80
crop offtake, avoided leaching or denitrification
(kg N ha
1), or as the avoided loss of gross profit to the
Table 4
arable industry in England and Wales (pounds sterling for Mean decrease in leaching due to perfect knowledge, compared with no
the total cropped area). knowledge of future weather between fertiliser application and harvest
Climate region Mean decrease in leaching (kg N ha
1)
Cool wet 1.5 *
3. Results and discussion Cool dry 1.2 *
Moderate 0.7
3.1. Losses of N Warm wet 3.1 *
Warm dry 0.8 *
Increased prior knowledge had a small direct environ- Weighted mean 1.1
*
mental benefit by decreasing the amount of N leached and of Significant at the 95% confidence level.
that denitrified before harvest. We expected these changes to
be small as only a small proportion of these losses occurs Table 5
ordinarily during the summer. Mean decrease (kg N ha
1) in leaching due to perfect knowledge, compared
The reduction in losses by denitrification was not with no knowledge of future weather between fertiliser application and
statistically significant at any location, the biggest reduction harvest
being 0.2 kg (data not shown). With perfect knowledge of Crop Soil type
the weather for three or more weeks into the future, Sand Loam Clay
denitrification was reduced by an average of 0.1 kg N ha
1 Winter wheat 1.4 2.0 *
1.9 *
only. Spring barley 0.5 0.6 0.6
The mean decrease in leaching of nitrogen due to the Winter oilseed rape 1.2 1.1 1.4 *
maximum level of prior knowledge was 1.2 kg N ha
1 Potatoes 0.5 0.7 0.5
*
calculated over all soils, sites and crops. The wetter areas Significant at the 95% confidence level.
26 A.G. Dailey et al. / Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 117 (2006) 22–28

Fig. 2. Shortfall or gain in N uptake by a crop of winter wheat in 80 separate

realisations of weather, forecast with the specified accuracy and duration;
(&) w = 1, duration 1 week; (*) w = 0.9, duration 27 weeks; (*) w = 0.5,
duration 5 weeks; (&) zero accuracy.
Fig. 1. Change in crop N (kg N ha
1) offtake due to increase in prior
knowledge of weather relative to no forecast. Durations refer to length of
forecast, accuracy (w) is the reliability of that forecast.

simulation years and represent a consistent benefit. There is
variability between the simulation years so that in some years
the benefit was more (see next section). With a virtually
perfect forecast, we found little difference in benefit between
soil types (range 5.8–6.6 kg ha
1) but more between crops
(spring barley 4.7, winter wheat 7.2 kg N ha
1, data not
shown). Perhaps surprisingly there was little difference
ascribable to the region and its weather (Table 6). This may be
because our analysis compares differences in prior knowledge
within regions of the same weather.
and 25 kg N ha
1 are roughly equivalent to a loss of half or
one tonne ha
1 of cereal yield respectively. For consistency
these same amounts of N were used as cut-off values in
looking at oil seed rape and potatoes even though such
amounts of N correspond to different amounts of yield in
these crops. The larger number and magnitude of shortfalls
in N offtake rather than gains in the results (Fig. 2) arises
from the fact that advice from SUNDIAL is geared towards
supplying fertiliser N below an upper bound (related to the
expected yield) in order to minimise the losses to the

3.3. Variability between years

Variability ensures that in some years the losses were

greater or less. However, the effect of knowledge of the
weather on the distribution of crop N offtake over the 80
years studied was somewhat skewed. Where there was no
prior knowledge of the weather, shortfalls in N offtake
relative to the SUNDIAL norm were frequent and some-
times large, whereas gains were rare and small (Fig. 2).
Moreover, shortfalls were more frequent than gains. To
make the consequences of this clear we have plotted the
frequency with which losses of crop N offtake exceeded 12.5
or 25 kg N ha
1 (Figs. 3 and 4). The cut-off values of 12.5

Table 6
Mean benefit in crop offtake using a 27 week forecast at 90% accuracy
Climate region Mean benefit (kg N ha
1)
Cool Wet 6.6*
Cool Dry 5.7*
Fig. 3. Frequency with which weather forecasts for the specified duration
Moderate 5.9*
and accuracy (w) would increase crop N offtake by 12.5 kg N ha
1
Warm Wet 7.0*
(0.5 tonnes cereal yield) relative to SUNDIAL’s advice and with no prior
Warm Dry 5.9*
knowledge of the weather (w = 0). Averaged over all crops and weather
*
Significant at the 95% confidence level. stations.
 A.G. Dailey et al. / Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 117 (2006) 22–28 27

forecast of 50% reliability) could be worth £9–11M

(Table 7). An increase in reliability to 70% might be worth
£15–18M to the industry on average each year. Foresight
(Anon, 2001) has suggested that forecasts of 2–3 months
duration might be useful in many contexts. To arable crop
farmers in England and Wales such forecasts, at an accuracy
of 70%, could be worth over £23M each year on average in
avoided loss of yield.
This article deals with the potential benefits of medium-
term weather forecasts in terms of nitrogen and its effects
only. There are other potential benefits. Forecasting of
disease, pest and weed infestation might be improved and
irrigation might be used more effectively and efficiently. It
ought also become possible to schedule farm operations
more efficiently with a potential saving in labour. These
aspects are beyond the scope of the present article,
however.
These analyses are expressed in terms of the financial
benefit to be gained from medium-term weather forecasts
Fig. 4. Frequency with which forecasts of weather for the specified duration
where farmers follow the advice given by SUNDIAL. As a
and accuracy (w) would increase crop N offtake by 25 kg N ha
1 (1 tonne
cereal yield) relative to SUNDIAL’s advice and with no prior knowledge of corollary of this, our results suggest that there is currently a
the weather (w = 0). Averaged over all crops and weather stations. financial benefit from not under-applying N. Thus farmers
are probably managing risk rationally when they consis-
Table 7 tently over-fertilise crops, e.g. Whitmore and Van Noord-
Gross value (£M, through avoided loss of yield) of prior knowledge of wijk (1995). Fig. 2 shows that there is little risk of financial
weather for the specified duration and accuracy loss from over-applying N but a risk of considerable loss of
Weeks of Forecast accuracy (w) yield in some years from under-applying. There are benefits
prior knowledge 1 0.9 0.8 0.7 0.5 0.3 to be gained in some years by applying more nitrogen
1 14.5 12.0 10.4 8.7 4.4 2.7
fertiliser than appears necessary based on expectation
3 23.4 20.2 17.7 15.3 9.3 7.2 derived from long-term records. Occasionally these benefits
5 28.0 24.5 21.1 18.2 11.0 8.5 can be quite large. The financial gains referred to in this
7 33.0 29.1 25.4 21.3 13.0 9.5 report should be seen as potential benefits with respect to the
9 37.1 32.8 27.6 23.0 14.3 9.6 use of nitrogen fertiliser within a framework of strict
27 68.3 54.4 41.9 35.7 20.3 16.4
adherence to environmental constraints. In England, such
We employed 84% of arable land in England and Wales in our calculations constraints are now imposed on approximately 60% of the
to reach these values. The calculations take no account of the change in cost
land area through the designation of nitrate vulnerable
of chemicals (fertilisers and sprays) that might be needed to avoid this loss
of yield. zones. In these areas it seems reasonable to expect medium-
term weather forecasts to have benefits of at least the
magnitude suggested in this article.
environment that come about with over-fertilisation. The
main benefit of prior knowledge of weather is to reduce the
number of occasions when lack of applied N depresses 4. Conclusions
yields even though the risk of leaching or denitrification
turns out to be small. The benefit of reliable medium term weather forecasts
Although the extra amounts of N acquired by a crop are following fertiliser application to water quality (nitrate
relatively small in comparison to the amount of fertiliser leaching) or to greenhouse gas emissions of nitrous oxide
applied (Figs. 3 and 4), one tonne per hectare is a significant from denitrification is unlikely to be great. Nor, at first sight,
contribution to farm yield and would probably be very do the benefits of medium-term weather forecasts to crop N
profitable at this level. Taken over the whole of England and offtake appear to be large. However, the distribution of crop
Wales, these benefits could be considerable. A forecast of 27 responses found here is heavily skewed towards the risk of
weeks (i.e. for the whole of the growing season following yield loss through failure to obtain sufficient N. In an
application) of 90% accuracy would be worth more than industry that adheres strictly to a nitrogen prediction system
£54M (on an annual basis) to farmers on average (Table 7). to minimise losses of N, the benefits of even a limited
In one of the extreme years referred to in Figs. 3 and 4 the weather forecast (three-week forecast that is 50% accurate)
amount of money could be even more. Even modest and could be worth £9M per year (arable farming in England and
more realistic levels of prior knowledge (say 3 or 5 weeks Wales). A rather better forecast (27 weeks, 90% reliability)
28 A.G. Dailey et al. / Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 117 (2006) 22–28
might be worth more than £54M per annum. The benefits
presented in this article represent the extra value of yield in
relation to nitrogen fertiliser only and make no attempt to
assess the value of better pest and disease predictions or of
the timing and scheduling of operations.
Acknowledgements
Rothamsted Research is grant aided by the Biotechnol-
ogy and Biological Sciences Research Council. We grate-
fully acknowledge support from the UK Government
Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
(Defra) and useful discussions with Margaret Glendining.
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