Abstract: The crop growth model HERMES was used to model crop rotation cycles at 12 experimental sites in the Czech Republic. A wide range of crops (spring and winter barley, winter wheat, maize, potatoes, sugar beet, winter rape, oats, alfalfa and grass), cultivated between 1981 and 2009 under various soil and climatic conditions, were included. The model was able to estimate the yields of field crop rotations at a reasonable level, with an index of agreement (IA) ranging from 0.82 to 0.96 for the calibration database (the median coefficient of determination (R-2) was 0.71), while IA for verification varied from 0.62 to 0.93 (median R-2 was 0.78). Grass yields were also estimated at a reasonable level of accuracy. The estimates were less accurate for the above-ground biomass at harvest (the medians for IA were 0.76 and 0.72 for calibration and verification, respectively, and analogous medians of R-2 were 0.50 and 0.49). The soil mineral nitrogen (N) content under the field crops was simulated with good precision, with the IA ranging from 0.49 to 0.74 for calibration and from 0.43 to 0.68 for verification. Generally, the soil mineral N was underestimated, and more accurate results were achieved at locations with intensive fertilization. Simulated yields, soil N, water and organic carbon (C) contents were compared with long-term field measurements at Ne. mc. ice, located within the fertile Moravian lowland. At this station, all of the observed parameters were reproduced with a reasonable level of accuracy. In the case of the organic C content, HERMES reproduced a decrease ranging from c. 85 to 77 tonnes (t)/ha (for the 0-0.3 m soil layer) between the years 1980 and 2007. In spite of its relatively simple approach and restricted input data, HERMES was proven to be robust across various conditions, which is a precondition for its future use for both theoretical and practical purposes.

Abstract: Assessment of climate change impacts on crops in regions of complex orography such as the Iberian Peninsula (IP) requires climate model output which is able to describe accurately the observed climate. The high resolution of output provided by Regional Climate Models (RCMs) is expected to be a suitable tool to describe regional and local climatic features, although their simulation results may still present biases. For these reasons, we compared several post-processing methods to correct or reduce the biases of RCM simulations from the ENSEMBLES project for the IP. The bias-corrected datasets were also evaluated in terms of their applicability and consequences in improving the results of a crop model to simulate maize growth and development at two IP locations, using this crop as a reference for summer cropping systems in the region. The use of bias-corrected climate runs improved crop phenology and yield simulation overall and reduced the inter-model variability and thus the uncertainty. The number of observational stations underlying each reference observational dataset used to correct the bias affected the correction performance. Although no single technique showed to be the best one, some methods proved to be more adequate for small initial biases, while others were useful when initial biases were so large as to prevent data application for impact studies. An initial evaluation of the climate data, the bias correction/reduction method and the consequences for impact assessment would be needed to design the most robust, reduced uncertainty ensemble for a specific combination of location, crop, and crop management.