Climate and Management Contributions to Recent Trends in U.S. Agricultural Yields

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Abstract
Major increases in crop yields will be required to meet the future demand for food worldwide, yet changes in climate and diminishing returns from technological advances may limit the ability of many regions to achieve the necessary gains (1, 2). Many researchers have predicted the effect of future climate changes on crop production using a combination of field studies and models (3), but there has been little evidence relating decadal-scale climate change to large-scale crop production. Here, we show that recent trends in temperature have increased the productivity of the two major U.S. crops and that accounting for climate significantly reduces the perceived gains due to management and other factors.