Dear All,

Wish you all a very happy and prosperous New Year.

I would appreciate if you all provide me your valuable time for my thought.  In all the dynamic crop simulation models, the initial conditions like management practices (seed rate, plant density for transplanting cases, fertilizer rate, etc), crop characteristics (genetic), soil physical and chemical conditions are fixed (or given) and using these initial conditions the daily growth is simulated according to the weather situations.  This is of course okay for simulation and study of multiple effects of soil-plant-atmosphere system.

But for yield forecasting/estimation, there is a need for mid-term correction, actually not mid-term, any time during the crop growth period.  For eg. Suppose I want to estimate the yield of rice over a place (under rainfed) well in advance with the use of a crop growth model.  Suppose the initial stages ie., from seedling to 50 days received normal climatic conditions and then suddenly there is a long dry spell of 20 days and after this, there is heavy rainfall, which compensated the previous drought conditions and I wish to know whether all the models such as CERES, ORYZA, etc, this effect is incorporated in the subroutine?

Second thing is during the crop growth period, say after 60 days of transplanting, I got actual LAI of 2.5 in the farmer’s field, but the model simulated a value of 3.6 at 60 Days after transplanting.  Whether is it possible to incorporate this actual value of 2.5 LAI as the initial LAI for the remaining period for simulating the yield, without modifying the management practices?  I hope, if it is possible, then we can estimate / forecast the yield in a reasonable range at different stages of the crop period.

Thank you for listening my thoughts.

With kind regards,

N. Subash
Scientist (Agricultural Meteorology)
ICAR Research Complex for Eastern Region
WALMI Complex
Phulwari Shariff P.O.
PATNA 801505
BIHAR
INDIA
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