Skip to main content
ARS Home » Plains Area » Fort Collins, Colorado » Center for Agricultural Resources Research » Water Management and Systems Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #353925
Research Project: Response of Ecosystem Services in Agricultural Watersheds to Changes in Water Availability, Land Use, Management, and Climate

Location: Water Management and Systems Research

Title: Unified Plant Growth Model (UPGM). Part 1. Background, Objectives, and Vision.

Author
item McMaster, Gregory
item Edmunds, Debora
item Fox, Jr, Fred
item Wagner, Larry
item Tatarko, John

Submitted to: Meeting Abstract
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 7/25/2018
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Since the development of the Environmental Policy Integrated Climate (EPIC) model in 1988, the EPIC-based plant growth code has been incorporated and modified into many agro-ecosystem models. The goals of the Unified Plant Growth Model (UPGM) project are: 1) integrating into one platform the enhancements from the multiple EPIC-based plant growth models, 2) further enhance the integrated UPGM model, and 3) develop a component that can be more easily linked into other agroecosystem models such as the Wind Erosion Prediction System (WEPS) and Agricultural Ecosystem Services Model (AgES). The Wind Erosion Prediction System (WEPS) model was chosen as the base platform for UPGM for many reasons including it was the most extensively modified of the EPIC-based plant code. Once the standalone UPGM component was created in Fortran 90/95, the phenology, seedling emergence, and plant height algorithms from the Phenology Modular Modeling System (PhenologyMMS) were added and tested for unstressed conditions. The UPGM component was also incorporated into the Java-based AgES model and has been tested for a range of environments. A number of issues have been identified including: 1) much better linkage was needed between the PhenologyMMS and WEPS algorithms (e.g., improving the partitioning among plant fractions), and 2) a redesign of the UPGM component was needed for easier incorporation into other agro-ecosystem models. This talk focuses on recent progress on this project.