A Modeling Approach to Simulate effects of Intercropping and Interspecific Competition in Arable Crops

Publikations-Art

Zeitschriftenbeitrag

Autoren

Knörzer, H., Graeff-Hönninger, S., Müller, B.U., Piepho, H.-P. and Claupein, W.

Erscheinungsjahr

2010

Veröffentlicht in

International Journal of Information Systems and Social Change (IJISSC)

Band/Volume

1/4

Seite (von - bis)

44-65

Interspecific competition between species influences their individual growth and performance. Neighborhood effects become especially important in intercropping systems. Modeling approaches could be a useful tool to simulate plant growth under different environmental conditions, and help to identify appropriate combinations of different crops, while managing competition. The aim of this study was to give an overview over different competition models and their underlying modeling approaches. To model intercropping in terms of neighbouring effects in the context of field boundary cultivation, a new model approach was developed and integrated into the DSSAT model. The results indicated the possibility to simulate general competition and beneficial effects due to different incoming solar radiation and soil temperature in a winter wheat/maize intercropping system. It seems to be important to consider more than the competition factor sunlight. Changed solar radiation alone could not explain yield differences in all cases. For example, intercropped maize could compensate low radiation due to its high radiation use efficiency. Wheat benefited namely from the increased solar radiation, but even more from the increased soil temperature.