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Caubel, J., García de Cortázar-Atauri, I., Launay, M., de Noblet-Ducoudré, N., Huard, F., Bertuzzi, P., et al. (2015). Broadening the scope for ecoclimatic indicators to assess crop climate suitability according to ecophysiological, technical and quality criteria. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, 207, 94–106.
Abstract: The cultivation of crops in a given area is highly dependent of climatic conditions. Assessment of how the climate is favorable is highly useful for planners, land managers, farmers and plant breeders who can propose and apply adaptation strategies to improve agricultural potentialities. The aim of this study was to develop an assessment method for crop-climate suitability that was generic enough to be applied to a wide range of issues and crops. The method proposed is based on agroclimatic indicators that are calculated over phenological periods (ecoclimatic indicators). These indicators are highly relevant since they provide accurate information about the effect of climate on particular plant processes and cultural practices that take place during specific phenological periods. Three case studies were performed in order to illustrate the potentialities of the method. They concern annual (maize and wheat) and perennial (grape) crops and focus on the study of climate suitability in terms of the following criteria: ecophysiological, days available to carry out cultural practices, and harvest quality. The analysis of the results revealed both the advantages and limitations of the method. The method is general and flexible enough to be applied to a wide range of issues even if an expert assessment is initially needed to build the analysis framework. The limited number of input data makes it possible to use it to explore future possibilities for agriculture in many areas. The access to intermediate information through elementary ecoclimatic indicators allows users to propose targeted adaptations when climate suitability is not satisfactory.
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Yin, X. G., Kersebaum, K. C., Kollas, C., Manevski, K., Baby, S., Beaudoin, N., et al. (2017). Performance of process-based models for simulation of grain N in crop rotations across Europe. Agric. Syst., 154, 63–77.
Abstract: The accurate estimation of crop grain nitrogen (N; N in grain yield) is crucial for optimizing agricultural N management, especially in crop rotations. In the present study, 12 process-based models were applied to simulate the grain N of i) seven crops in rotations, ii) across various pedo-climatic and agro-management conditions in Europe, under both continuous simulation and single year simulation, and for iv) two calibration levels, namely minimal and detailed calibration. Generally, the results showed that the accuracy of the simulations in predicting grain N increased under detailed calibration. The models performed better in predicting the grain N of winter wheat (Triticum aestivum L.), winter barley (Hordewn vulgare L.) and spring barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) compared to spring oat (Avena saliva L.), winter rye (Secale cereale L.), pea (Piswn sativum L.) and winter oilseed rape (Brassica napus L.). These differences are linked to the intensity of parameterization with better parameterized crops showing lower prediction errors. The model performance was influenced by N fertilization and irrigation treatments, and a majority of the predictions were more accurate under low N and rainfed treatments. Moreover, the multi-model mean provided better predictions of grain N compared to any individual model. In regard to the Individual models, DAISY, FASSET, HERMES, MONICA and STICS are suitable for predicting grain N of the main crops in typical European crop rotations, which all performed well in both continuous simulation and single year simulation. Our results show that both the model initialization and the cover crop effects in crop rotations should be considered in order to achieve good performance of continuous simulation. Furthermore, the choice of either continuous simulation or single year simulation should be guided by the simulation objectives (e.g. grain yield, grain N content or N dynamics), the crop sequence (inclusion of legumes) and treatments (rate and type of N fertilizer) included in crop rotations and the model formalism.
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Molina-Herrera, S., Haas, E., Grote, R., Kiese, R., Klatt, S., Kraus, D., et al. (2017). Importance of soil NO emissions for the total atmospheric NOX budget of Saxony, Germany. Atm. Environ., 152, 61–76.
Abstract: Soils are a significant source for the secondary greenhouse gas NO and assumed to be a significant source of tropospheric NOx in rural areas. Here we tested the LandscapeDNDC model for its capability to simulate magnitudes and dynamics of soil NO emissions for 22 sites differing in land use (arable, grassland and forest) and edaphic as well as climatic conditions. Overall, LandscapeDNDC simulated mean soil NO emissions agreed well with observations (r(2) = 0.82). However, simulated day to day variations of NO did only agree weakly with high temporal resolution measurements, though agreement between simulations and measurements significantly increased if data were aggregated to weekly, monthly and seasonal time scales. The model reproduced NO emissions from high and low emitting sites, and responded to fertilization (mineral and organic) events with pulse emissions. After evaluation, we linked the LandscapeDNDC model to a GIS database holding spatially explicit data on climate, land use, soil and management to quantify the contribution of soil biogenic NO emissions to the total NOx budget for the State of Saxony, Germany. Our calculations show that soils of both agricultural and forest systems are significant sources and contribute to about 8% (uncertainty range: 6 -13%) to the total annual tropospheric NO, budget for Saxony. However, the contributions of soil NO emission to total tropospheric NO, showed a high spatial variability and in some rural regions such as the Ore Mts., simulated soil NO emissions were by far more important than anthropogenic sources. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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Baldinger, L., Vaillant, J., Zollitsch, W., & Rinne, M. (2015). Making a decision-support system for dairy farmers usable throughout Europe: the challenge of feed evaluation. Advances in Animal Biosciences, 6(01), 3–5.
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