Assessing the impact of drought stress on winter wheat canopy by hermes crop growth model

The main aim of this study was evaluate a drought stress effect on winter wheat development, growth (leaf area index), soil moisture and yields. Simultaneously, the ability of Hermes crop growth model to simulate drought stress response was tested. The field trial was established at Domanínek station (Bystřice nad Pernštejnem district, Czech Republic) in 2014. Mobile rain-out shelters for precipitation reduction were installed on the plots of winter wheat in May 2015. Results of this study showed that model is able to reproduce well a soil moisture content and to certain extent the drought stress for grain yields of winter wheat. Using the rain-out shelters (from 19 May to harvest on 6 August 2015), real winter wheat yields were reduced by 1.7 t/ha. The model was able to estimate the average yield with a deviation of 0.15 t/ha (6%) for no stressed variant. Model underestimated the yields for sheltered variant with a difference 0.67 t/ha (71%) on average against observed yields