*3.3. Maize Crop Production 1985—-2016*

The average maize yield for Setsoto from 1985 to 2016 ranged from 1.96 tons ha−<sup>1</sup> to 2.89 tons ha<sup>−</sup>1. The highest maize yield achieved during this period was in 2016 with 6.18 tons ha−<sup>1</sup> in Clocolan, while the lowest of 0.10 tons ha−<sup>1</sup> was recorded in 1991 in Senekal (Figure 2). The maize yield CVs over this period was between 37.8% and 46.2% per annum, with a standard deviation of between 0.91 and 1.31 tons ha−<sup>1</sup> across the municipality (Table 4).

**Figure 2.** The annual maize yield (tons ha<sup>−</sup>1) for the four stations in the Setsoto municipality from 1985 to 2016 used for this study.

**Table 4.** The average maize yield (tons ha<sup>−</sup>1) for the four stations in Setsoto Municipality from 1985–2016 used for this study.


The dataset available for Ficksburg in this study was only for 20 years (1985–2005), as opposed to 32 years in the other three weather stations. Each station showed high inter-annual variation in yield. All seem to overlap at least in the first few years (1985 to 1995). The yield in Ficksburg showed the highest inter-annual variation between 1995 and 2005 (Figure 2).
