CropPlantHarvest: A 500 m annual dataset of crop planting and harvesting dates (2001–2024) of the U.S. Midwest

Abstract. As key components of agricultural management, planting and harvesting schedules have strongly influenced crop production by defining the length of the crop growing season and shaping the environmental conditions crops experience. Accurate knowledge of these management data is crucial for enhancing crop yield estimates by capturing the timing of crop development relative to weather and soil conditions, assessing climate adaptation by tracking shifts in farming practices over time, and supporting agricultural carbon accounting. Yet, existing planting and harvesting date datasets are largely based on state-level statistics or rule-based calendars that overlook intra-regional variability and the influence of human decision-making. The absence of long-term, high-resolution planting and harvesting date information hinders our ability to reconstruct historical agricultural practices and assess their agronomic and environmental consequences. In this study, we introduce CropPlantHarvest, the first dataset of annual corn and soybean planting and harvesting dates across the U.S. Midwest at 500 m resolution from 2001 to 2024. Planting dates are estimated using CropSow, an integrative remotely sensed crop modeling system that aligns simulated crop growth trajectories with satellite observations to retrieve field-level planting dates. Harvesting dates are retrieved using the Normalized Harvest Phenology Index (NHPI), a novel index that integrates Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and near-infrared (NIR) reflectance to detect harvesting events by capturing the distinct spectral transition from senescent crops to exposed crop residues. Validation against USDA crop progress reports and field-level dataset demonstrates high accuracy of CropPlantHarvest, with a mean absolute error of approximately 5 days for both crop species. This large spatial and temporal dataset captures management-driven variability in crop season timing and duration, supporting improved modeling of crop yields, greenhouse gas emissions, and resource use. It could also serve as a benchmark for refining remote-sensing phenology products and evaluating the agro-environmental impacts of evolving crop management decisions. CropPlantHarvest is available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.16967482 (Liu and Diao, 2025).