Agroforestry is a promising adaptation measure for climate change, especially low external inputs smallholder maize farming systems. However, due to its long-term nature and heterogeneity across farms landscapes, it difficult quantitatively evaluate contribution in building the resilience of systems change over large areas. In this study, we developed an approach simulate emulate shading, micro...

Global warming and altered precipitation patterns pose a serious threat to crop production in the North China Plain (NCP). Quantifying frequency of adverse climate events (e.g., frost, heat drought) under future climates assessing how those climatic extreme would affect yield are important effectively inform make science-based adaptation options for agriculture changing climate. In this study, ...

Trash blankets contain substantial amounts of nitrogen (N) and other nutrients. The availability of N in trash is complicated because most of the N cycles through the soil organic matter. To gain insights into the long-term fate of N contained in trash, N dynamics in the SASEX long-term trash management experiment (BT1) were simulated with the APSIM-Sugarcane cropping systems model. Initially, ...

Heading time is a major determinant of the adaptation of wheat to different environments, and is critical in minimizing risks of frost, heat, and drought on reproductive development. Given that major developmental genes are known in wheat, a process-based model, APSIM, was modified to incorporate gene effects into estimation of heading time, while minimizing degradation in the predictive capabi...

Models of agro-ecosystems provide means of prediction beyond the bounds of experience or experimentation. Extrapolation may involve simulation of the expected behaviour for different climate and/or soil conditions, perhaps with alternative management, or for a longer time scale than observed experimentally. The issues to be addressed include those concerned with crop growth and profitability, e...

Identifying opportunities to further improve pasture production on high producing, irrigated Canterbury dairy farms is complex. An innovation systems approach was used identify the factors contributing variation in a case study farm such as: soil characteristics, irrigation management, and grass grub populations. This paper focuses value proposition of managing zones optimise production. Using ...

Abstract Irrigation water is an expensive and limited resource optimal scheduling can boost efficiency. Scheduling decisions often need to be made several days prior irrigation event, so a key aspect of the accurate prediction crop use soil status ahead time. This relies on inputs including initial status, conditions weather. Since each input subject uncertainty, it important understand how the...

Climate variability can induce uncertainty in yields, and threaten long term economic viability of rainfed agricultural enterprises in the absence of effective adaptation strategies. Enterprise mix diversification has been found to be an effective adaptation strategy for mitigating multiple sources of farm business risk in some contexts. The extent to which enterprise mix diversification can mi...

Models that implement the bio-physical components of agro-ecosystems are ideally suited for exploring sustainability issues in cropping systems. Sustainability may be represented as a number of objectives to be maximized or minimized. Models provide a means to evaluate system performance for alternative strategic, tactical and operational decisions. The full decision space is usually very large...

Field studies that address the production of lignocellulosic biomass as a source of renewable energy provide critical data for the development of bioenergy crop models. A literature survey revealed that 14 models have been used for simulating bioenergy crops including herbaceous and woody bioenergy crops, and for crassulacean acid metabolism (CAM) crops. These models simulate field-scale produc...