Modelling sugarcane production systems I. Development and performance of the sugarcane module

Research on more productive and sustainable sugarcane production systems wo uld be aided by a comprehensive simulator of the sugarcane crop that is cog nisant of a broader crop-soil-management system. A sugarcane crop model is described that can be deployed in the APSIM framework for agricultural syst ems simulation. The model operates on a daily time step, grows a leaf canop y, uses intercepted radiation to produce assimilate, and partitions this as similate into leaf, structural stalk and sugar. The crop physiological proc esses represented in the model respond to the radiation and temperature env ironment and are sensitive to water and nitrogen supply. The model simulate s growth, water use, N accumulation, sugar dry weight and fresh cane yield for plant and ratoon crops in response to climate, soil, management and gen otypic factors. The model was developed on 35 datasets from Australia, Hawa ii, South Africa and Swaziland, covering a wide range of crop classes, lati tudes, water regimes and nitrogen supply conditions. Coefficients of determ ination for model predictions compared to observed data included 0.79 for L AI, 0.93 for crop biomass, 0.83 for stalk sucrose and 0.86 for N accumulati on in above ground tissues. The particular strengths of this model are disc ussed in the context of agricultural systems simulation. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.