Modelling production of field crops and its requirements

Simulation models are being developed that enable quantitative estimates of the growth and production of the main agricultural crops under a wide range of weather and soil conditions. For this purpose, several hierarchically ordered production situations are distinguished in such a way that the results of simulations on one hierarchical situation are used as input for the calculations of another. It is shown that environmental heterogeneity contributes considerably to the complexity of the problem and that especially the averaging of weather data over time and soil data over space leads to distortion or even destruction of data. To avoid this, the data from the original observation sites should remain accessible at all times. -from Author