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Korhonen, P., Palosuo, T., Persson, T., Höglind, M., Jego, G., Van Oijen, M., et al. (2018). Modelling grass yields in northern climates – a comparison of three growth models for timothy. Field Crops Research, 224, 37–47.
Abstract: During the past few years, several studies have compared the performance of crop simulation models to assess the uncertainties in model-based climate change impact assessments and other modelling studies. Many of these studies have concentrated on cereal crops, while fewer model comparisons have been conducted for grasses. We compared the predictions for timothy grass (Phleum pratertse L.) yields for first and second cuts along with the dynamics of above-ground biomass for the grass simulation models BASGRA and CATIMO, and the soil -crop model STICS. The models were calibrated and evaluated using field data from seven sites across Northern Europe and Canada with different climates, soil conditions and management practices. Altogether the models were compared using data on timothy grass from 33 combinations of sites, cultivars and management regimes. Model performances with two calibration approaches, cultivar-specific and generic calibrations, were compared. All the models studied estimated the dynamics of above-ground biomass and the leaf area index satisfactorily, but tended to underestimate the first cut yield. Cultivar-specific calibration resulted in more accurate first cut yield predictions than the generic calibration achieving root mean square errors approximately one third lower for the cultivar-specific calibration. For the second cut, the difference between the calibration methods was small. The results indicate that detailed soil process descriptions improved the overall model performance and the model responses to management, such as nitrogen applications. The results also suggest that taking the genetic variability into account between cultivars of timothy grass also improves the yield estimates. Calibrations using both spring and summer growth data simultaneously revealed that processes determining the growth in these two periods require further attention in model development.
Keywords: Forage grass; Model comparison; Timothy; Uncertainty; Yield; Nutritive-Value; Catimo Model; Nitrogen Balances; Simulation; Regrowth; Wheat; Stics; Dynamics; Harvest; Water
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Raymundo, R., Asseng, S., Prassad, R., Kleinwechter, U., Concha, J., Condori, B., et al. (2017). Performance of the SUBSTOR-potato model across contrasting growing conditions. Field Crops Research, 202, 57–76.
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Sandor, R., Ehrhardt, F., Grace, P., Recous, S., Smith, P., Snow, V., et al. (2020). Ensemble modelling of carbon fluxes in grasslands and croplands. Field Crops Research, 252, 107791.
Abstract: Croplands and grasslands are agricultural systems that contribute to land–atmosphere exchanges of carbon (C). We evaluated and compared gross primary production (GPP), ecosystem respiration (RECO), net ecosystem exchange (NEE) of CO2, and two derived outputs – C use efficiency (CUE=-NEE/GPP) and C emission intensity (IntC= -NEE/Offtake [grazed or harvested biomass]). The outputs came from 23 models (11 crop-specific, eight grassland-specific, and four models covering both systems) at three cropping sites over several rotations with spring and winter cereals, soybean and rapeseed in Canada, France and India, and two temperate permanent grasslands in France and the United Kingdom. The models were run independently over multi-year simulation periods in five stages (S), either blind with no calibration and initialization data (S1), using historical management and climate for initialization (S2), calibrated against plant data (S3), plant and soil data together (S4), or with the addition of C and N fluxes (S5). Here, we provide a framework to address methodological uncertainties and contextualize results. Most of the models overestimated or underestimated the C fluxes observed during the growing seasons (or the whole years for grasslands), with substantial differences between models. For each simulated variable, changes in the multi-model median (MMM) from S1 to S5 was used as a descriptor of the ensemble performance. Overall, the greatest improvements (MMM approaching the mean of observations) were achieved at S3 or higher calibration stages. For instance, grassland GPP MMM was equal to 1632 g C m−2 yr-1 (S5) while the observed mean was equal to 1763 m-2 yr-1 (average for two sites). Nash-Sutcliffe modelling efficiency coefficients indicated that MMM outperformed individual models in 92.3 % of cases. Our study suggests a cautious use of large-scale, multi-model ensembles to estimate C fluxes in agricultural sites if some site-specific plant and soil observations are available for model calibration. The further development of crop/grassland ensemble modelling will hinge upon the interpretation of results in light of the way models represent the processes underlying C fluxes in complex agricultural systems (grassland and crop rotations including fallow periods).
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Yin, X., Kersebaum, K. - C., Beaudoin, N., Constantin, J., Chen, F., Louarn, G., et al. (2020). Uncertainties in simulating N uptake, net N mineralization, soil mineral N and N leaching in European crop rotations using process-based models. Field Crops Research, , 107863.
Abstract: Modelling N transformations within cropping systems is crucial for N management optimization in order to increase N use efficiency and reduce N losses. Such modelling remains challenging because of the complexity of N cycling in soil–plant systems. In the current study, the uncertainties of six widely used process-based models (PBMs), including APSIM, CROPSYST, DAISY, FASSET, HERMES and STICS, were tested in simulating different N managements (catch crops (CC) and different N fertilizer rates) in 12-year rotations in Western Europe. Winter wheat, sugar beet and pea were the main crops, and radish was the main CC in the tested systems. Our results showed that PBMs simulated yield, aboveground biomass, N export and N uptake well with low RMSE values, except for sugar beet, which was generally less well parameterized. Moreover, PBMs provided more accurate crop simulations (i.e. N export and N uptake) compared to simulations of soil (N mineralization and soil mineral N (SMN)) and environmental variables (N leaching). The use of multi-model ensemble mean or median of four PBMs significantly reduced the mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) between simulations and observations to less than 15% for yield, aboveground biomass, N export and N uptake. Multi-model ensemble also significantly reduced the MAPE for net N mineralization and annual N leaching to around 15%, while it was larger than 20% for SMN. Generally, PBMs well simulated the CC effects on N fluxes, i.e. increasing N mineralization and reducing N leaching in both short-term and long-term, and all PBMs correctly predicted the effects of the reduced N rate on all measured variables in the study. The uncertainties of multi-model ensemble for N mineralization, SMN and N leaching were larger, mainly because these variables are influenced by plant-soil interactions and subject to cumulative long-term effects in crop rotations, which makes them more difficult to simulate. Large differences existed between individual PBMs due to the differences in formalisms for describing N processes in soil–plant systems, the skills of modelers and the model calibration level. In addition, the model performance also depended on the simulated variables, for instance, HERMES and FASSET performed better for yield and crop biomass, APSIM, DAISY and STICS performed better for N export and N uptake, STICS provided best simulation for SMN and N leaching among the six individual PBMs in the study, but all PBMs met difficulties to well predict either average or variance of soil N mineralization. Our results showed that better calibration for soil N variables is needed to improve model predictions of N cycling in order to optimize N management in crop rotations.
Keywords: multi-model ensemble; crop rotations; catch crops; N cycling; N export
Area: CropM
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