Ezra's Round Table / Systems Seminar / ORIE Colloquium: Jay Swaminathan (North Carolina) - Improving crop yields through optimized planting schedules

Description

Agricultural yields tend to be low in developing countries. In this research we study how crop yields could be improved through optimized seed planting schedules. We utilize a seed growth model based on phytology literature and embed that in an optimal seed planting problem while considering seasonal rainfall uncertainty. We show that the optimal planting policy is a time dependent threshold-type policy and the optimal threshold is dependent on the soil water content and seeding capacity. This policy can be easily implemented by small scale farmers. For real large-scale problems, in our computational study, we demonstrate significant relative yield advantage of the optimal planting schedule over commonly used heuristics in practice in Africa. We show that the relative yield advantage of the optimal policy over commonly used heuristics increases as the climate condition becomes more severe for planting.

Bio:
Jayashankar (Jay) M. Swaminathan is the GlaxoSmithKline Distinguished Professor of Operations at the Kenan-Flagler Business School at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. An internationally recognized thought leader on productivity and innovation in business operations, he is an inducted Fellow of the Institute for Operations Research and Management Science (INFORMS) and Production and Operations Management Society (POMS). He currently serves as a department editor for Management Science and Production and Operations Management journals. He has received numerous awards for his work, including the National Science Foundation CAREER Award, George Nicholson Prize, Schwabacher Fellowship, Weatherspoon Distinguished Research, Weatherspoon Excellence in Teaching and Roy Holsten Award for Exceptional Service. He received his Ph.D. and master's degree in industrial administration from GSIA (now Tepper) at Carnegie Mellon University and his bachelor's degree in computer science and engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi.