The Program Will:
- Describe a practical approach for simulating effects of soil, weather, management, and pest factors on crop production.
- Demonstrate how processes of crop growth and development, water use, uptake of water and nutrients and carbon dynamics can be simulated.
- Make extensive use of “hands on” sessions that apply the DSSAT-CSM to cropping systems in various regions of the world.
- Describe procedures for collecting and managing crop, weather and soil data for model evaluation.
- Give participants the opportunity to work with their own data and determine the accuracy of the models for application to specific problems.
- Analyze management alternatives for single seasons or over long-term crop rotations.
- Concentrate on specific applications that include irrigation, fertilizer and nutrient management, climate change, soil carbon sequestration, climate variability, and precision management.
- Assess economic risks and environmental impacts associated with agricultural production.
CENTURY-Based soil carbon and nitrogen model for improved performance in low input agricultural systems and for simulating soil C sequestration.
Cropping System Model
The program will make extensive use of the DSSAT-Cropping System Model (CSM). CSM is a general cropping system model for simulating crop growth and development and soil and plant water, nitrogen, phosphorus, and carbon dynamics. CSM is comprised of the CROPGRO module for soybean, peanut, common bean, chickpea, faba bean, cowpea, and other grain legumes, the CERES module for maize, sorghum and millet, the CERES-RICE module for rice, the SUBSTOR module for potato, the CROPSIM-CERES module for wheat and barley, the CROPGRO module for tomato, bell pepper, bahia, brachiaria, cotton, canola and green beans, the CANEGRO module for sugarcane, and the CASSAVA module for cassava. The CENTURY model for the simulation of soil carbon and nitrogen has also been incorporated in CSM. DSSAT Version 4.8 is Windows-based and includes the CSM model as well as tools and utility programs for managing soil, weather, genetic, crop, economic and pest data, and application and analysis programs.
- Software for working with soil, weather, and experimental data.
- Modular DSSAT Cropping System Model incorporating CERES, CROPGRO, SUBSTOR, CROPSIM-CERES, CERES-RICE, CASSAVA, CENTURY and CANEGRO.
- Focus crops include alfalfa, bahia, barley, bell pepper, brachiaria, cabbage, canola, cassava, chia, chickpea, cotton, cowpea, drybean, faba bean, green beans, guar, guinea grass, maize, millet, peanut, pigeon pea, pineapple, potato, quinoa, rice, safflower, sorghum, soybean, strawberry, sugarbeet, sugarcane, sunflower, sweet corn, tanier, taro, tef, tomato, velvet bean, and wheat.