Hello Dr. Howard,

There is no special way to enter snow into the ceres models.  If a day has
temperatures below zero the amount in the rain column is considered to be
the water equivalent.

This water equivalent is stored in a separate variable called snow and when
the maximum temperature climbs above zero this snow variable is added back
into rain and is then allowed to enter into the soil. The rate of the
melting depends on temperature and is increased if there is rain on the
days that it is melting.

Mostly I've used snow with winter wheat, but there is no reason why it
shouldn't work with maize.

Brian

At 03:53 PM 8/28/2003 +0200, you wrote:
>Hi,
>
>Perhaps somebody can help me. I'm trying to model the impact of snow
>using Ceres maize. I'm particular interested on how to specify snow
>events, the preferred units (mm?). Have anybody successfully modeled the
>impact of snow on maize growth?
>
>Thanks
>
>Dr. Micheal Howard
>Research and development
>Agrista
>Visible Communication in Agriculture
>http://www.agrista.com
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==============================================================
Brian Baer                             [log in to unmask]
MMG Dept, Michigan State University    (517) 355-6463 x 1602
6176 Biomedical & Physical Sci. Build. (517) 353-8957 (fax)
East Lansing, MI  48824-4320         http://www.msu.edu/~baerb