The potential of Russia to increase its wheat production through cropland expansion and intensification

In his third and last dissertation chapter, Florian Schierhorn and colleagues estimated the additional wheat production that Russia could potentially produce. The estimation of the production potentials relies on the results from a crop growth model (Schierhorn at al 2014, ERL) and the estimation of land availability (Schierhorn et al 2013, GBC). Most of the potential additional production can be attained through increasing crop productivity (i.e., increasing wheat yields) while the additional production from land expansion is fairly small, particularly if carbon trade-offs are accounted for. Finally, he discusses the factors that prevent higher production and potential measures to increase it.