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ARS Home » Plains Area » Temple, Texas » Grassland Soil and Water Research Laboratory » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #361219
Research Project: Resilient Management Systems and Decision Support Tools to Optimize Agricultural Production and Watershed Responses from Field to National Scale

Location: Grassland Soil and Water Research Laboratory

Title: Back to the future: Revisiting the application of an enzyme kinetic equation to maize development nearly four decades later

Author
item Kiniry, James
item KIM, SUMIN - Oak Ridge Institute For Science And Education (ORISE)
item TONNANG, H - International Institute Of Tropical Agriculture (IITA)

Submitted to: Agronomy
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 9/12/2019
Publication Date: 9/19/2019
Citation: Kiniry, J.R., Kim, S., Tonnang, H.E. 2019. Back to the future: Revisiting the application of an enzyme kinetic equation to maize development nearly four decades later. Agronomy. 9(9):566-577. https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy9090566.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy9090566

Interpretive Summary: With the recent resurgent interest in predicting corn development stages, this study takes one more step, using recently published data to refit a curve equation and compare it to traditional linear equations. These data were for corn development for eight corn hybrids at diverse sites in Africa. The original curved equation was not adequate. After adjusting this curve for the measured data of the first hybrid, the equation did much better. The degree day equation with high temperature stress included was fit to the first hybrid and did better when applied to all the hybrids. These equations were slightly less accurate than a previously published curve equation. The first curve equation, while slightly less accurate, showed promise, realistically capturing the high, low, and optimum rates. All the equations show promise to some degree for future applications in computer simulation of corn development. The fit linear equations had a mean base temperature of 5.30 C, much lower than the commonly used value of 100 C.

Technical Abstract: With the recent resurgence in interest in systems describing maize (Zea mays L.) development rate responses to temperature, this study takes one more step, using recently published data to refit the Poikilotherm equation and compare it to broken stick, “Heat Stress” equations. These data were for development rate of eight maize hybrids at diverse sites in Africa. The Poikilotherm equation with original parameter values was not adequate. After adjusting this curve for the measured data of the first hybrid, the Poikilotherm equation did much better. The Heat Stress equation fit to the first hybrid, did better when applied to all the hybrids. The Heat Stress equations fitted separately for each hybrid did only slightly better than the one Heat Stress equation. Thus, separate fitting of such an equation for different hybrids may not be necessary. The nonlinear Briere et al. (1999) curves were best, but the one Heat Stress equation and the separate Heat Stress equations were nearly as good. The Poikilotherm equation showed promise, realistically capturing the high, low, and optimum rate values measured. All the equations show promise to some degree for future applications in simulating maize development rate. When fitting separate regressions for each hybrid for the Heat Stress equations the base temperatures had a mean of 5.30 C, similar to the Bonhomme et al. (1994) value of 60 C. The last hybrid had noticeably different rates than the others. Future research could investigate the reasons for this different development rate and investigate similar hybrids.