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ARS Home » Southeast Area » Florence, South Carolina » Coastal Plain Soil, Water and Plant Conservation Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #97287

Title: SITE-SPECIFICITY OF CERES-MAIZE MODEL PARAMETERS: A CASE STUDY IN THE SOUTH EASTERN US COASTAL PLAIN

Author
item Sadler, Edward
item GERWIG, BETSY - 6657-15-00
item Evans, Dean
item Millen, Joseph
item Bauer, Philip
item Busscher, Warren

Submitted to: European Conference on Precision Agriculture Proceedings
Publication Type: Proceedings
Publication Acceptance Date: 7/11/1998
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: The number of possible combinations of soils, crops, and weather that need to be examined while developing fertilizer and other input recommendations for precision farming suggests that models of crop growth should be quite useful. However, it is not yet known whether the models are suitably accurate, nor are there sufficient site-specific inputs for most situations. This study attempted to determine how spatially precise soil characteristics needed to be if CERES-Maize model results were to be descriptive of spatial observations. Both V3.1 and V3.5 were examined. Detail of inputs ranged from the usual soil survey information for typical pedons, up to field-observed soil, infiltration, and crop characteristics. In this study, model performance overall was disappointing and was not significantly improved by increasing the level of detail.