Historic Grain Harvests?

by Frenzal1

How has the yield of typical grain harvests changed through time?

I'm currently living adjacent to some large wheat fields that are being harvested which lead me to askreddit how many loaves of bread you get from a hectare of wheat (~7800 apparently). That then got me wondering about how much more efficient we are today compared to a hundred years ago or a thousand years ago or three thousand years ago or ten thousand years ago.

wotan_weevil

To look at data from one area, Britain, we have wheat yields of:

Year 1000kg/hectare
1300 0.53
1400 0.42
1600 0.74
1700 0.94
1800 1.25
1860 1.96
2017 7.9

Data up to 1860 from Broadberry, S., Campbell, B., Klein, A., Overton, M., & Van Leeuwen, B. (2015). British Economic Growth, 1270–1870. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

A similar result can be seen in Whitney, Milton. β€œThe Yield of Wheat in England during Seven Centuries.” Science, vol. 58, no. 1504, 1923, pp. 320–324, https://www.jstor.org/stable/1648518 - Whitney gives the pre-modern average as about 0.9t/ha (6 bushels/acre).

These yields are averages over both good and bad land, over both good and bad years. The yield in a good year would be higher; the yield is a bad year might mean little grain left for eating after seed is kept for the next sowing. For an idea of the harvest-to-harvest variation in yield that is possible, see the first graph in http://www.cropyields.ac.uk/project.php

Yields are dependent on weather and climate. In many places, wheat is grown on rather marginal land, and average yields can be much lower than the quite high 7.9t/ha for Britain above. For example, the average Australian wheat yield is about 1.74 t/ha (while about 8t/ha is achievable in Australia with good land and irrigation). In some places, modern yields are below 1t/ha (where the land is poor, no/little fertilizer is used, and the crops depends on (not very good) rainfall); this is a yield similar to pre-modern yields. These low yields can be commercially viable due to enormously reduced labour costs due to mechanisation; they often represent a spread of wheat-growing into areas made viable due to improved productivity. Other modern low yields are due to the retention of essentially Medieval agricultural technology.

(Your 7800 loaves/ha is probably an equivalent for 7800kg/ha = 7.8t/ha.)