Predictive Modeling of Sweet Cherry (Prunus avium L.) Cultivation Area and Production in Himachal Pradesh
摘要
The study investigates long-term trends in sweet cherry (Prunus avium L.) area and production in Himachal Pradesh, India, using linear, nonlinear, autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) and support vector regression (SVR) models based on annual data (from 1994 to 2024–2025). Cherry cultivation exhibited sustained expansion, with compound growth rates (CGRs) of 6.77% (area) and 11.34% (production). The cubic model best captured area and the power model best described production trends. Penalized regression splines provided the best fit (area: Akaike information criterion [AIC] = 49.99, production AIC = 58.00), outperforming locally estimated scatterplot smoothing (LOESS) and classical sigmoids. ARIMA (0,3,2) for area and ARIMA (2,2,2) for production satisfied model diagnostics. Both ARIMA and SVR showed mixed results, but SVR can be considered superior based on AIC and Bayesian information criterion (BIC). These findings provide a data-driven framework for policy formulation in sustainable cherry cultivation in Himachal Pradesh.