Biophysical models for cropping system simulation

The definition of mathematical models to estimate plants growth as a function of environmental variables has started many decades ago, for instance expressing the biomass growth of a plant as a function of the solar radiation intercepted (Warren Wilson 1967). Since then, crop models have evolved including sub-models to estimate plant development, and several other processes relevant to the simulation of the interaction plant-soil as affected by weather and agricultural management. Two main goals can be identified as drivers in plant model development: (1) studying the genotype × environment interaction, as a support tool to variety selection within a given species, or (2) studying production enterprises, hence comparing, from a biophysical point of view, yield, resource use, and externalities of agricultural production systems. Whether most of the models of the former group are specialized to a single crop, the latter includes multi-crop models to simulate crop sequences as in most production systems.