Crop environment matrix: a simple device for coarsely assessing the ecophysiological suitability of environments for crop production

Abstract

It is shown that a simple tabular method used to summarize crop ecophysiological relationships for land evaluation pro1ects can serve as a rapid means of recording site characteristics and coarsely predicting crop performance. The format devised for this purpose, which is called a crop environment matrix (CEM), also lends itself to use on computers and to coarse-scale classification of locations for crop production. An example of a CEM is given for commercial bananas. CEMs for cashew, cassava, coconut, arabica coffee, robusta coffee, karuka (Pandanus sp.), mango, oil palm, pineapple and sweet potato are also available.