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ARS Home » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #99376
Title: OWSIMU: AN OBJECT-ORIENTED AND WEB-BASED SIMULATOR FOR PLANT GROWTH

Author
item PAN, XIAOKANG - CROP SCIENCES UOFI URBANA
item HESKETH, JOHN - FORMER USDA ARS
item HUCK, MORRIS - FORMER USDA ARS

Submitted to: Biological Systems Simulation Group Proceedings
Publication Type: Proceedings
Publication Acceptance Date: 3/24/1999
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: OWSimu is a generic plant growth simulator for research and educational purposes. This simulator describes the growth of typical plant that is free of pests and diseases. It is currently able to simulate plant growth for more than a dozen crops such as cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.), soybean (Glycine max L.), corn (Zea mays L.), tomato (Lycoperiscon esculentum M.), etc. and weeds like cocklebur (Xanthium strumarium L.), jimsonweed (Datura stamarium L.), velvetleaf (Abutilon theophrasti M.), etc. under Illinois weather conditions using properties of three typical soils. OWSimu is developed as a Java applet with a user-friendly graphical interface running on the Web, with a Java (JDK1.1)-embedded web browser, users can link to the run-time models and run plant growth simulations on their own machine with code from our website (http://th190-50.agn.uiuc.edu). They can choose a target plant species and select different weather and soil conditions from the menu choices built into the user graphical interface, and then input agronomic data such as irrigation, fertilization, planting date, row spacing, etc. through a popup window or the relevant text fields. The output is then displayed in both graphical and net forms chosen from a popup menu for such state-variables or processes as plant height, LAI, photosynthesis, evaportranspiration, etc. The program source code is portable and reusable for further development and other crop modeling work.