Articles
MODELING FIELD CROP AND RANGELAND CANOPY DEVELOPMENT, STRUCTURE, AND DYNAMICS
Article number
593_21
Pages
165 – 170
Language
English
Abstract
Modeling field crop and rangeland canopy development, structure, and dynamics is increasingly receiving greater attention for a variety of reasons including improving our predictions of production and yield, increasing the efficacy of management practices, and calculating the response to extreme environmental events such as hail and frost.
Formally beginning with the German morphological school lead by Goethe, our understanding of fundamental principles governing plant canopy development has exploded.
Understanding the canopy is composed of phytomers produced by the population of shoot apices, recognizing each phytomer is in a different microenvironment that likely receives and sends signals differentially, creating morphological naming schemes for each phytomer/tissue, better quantifying of developmental processes of the shoot apex, and correlating developmental events with growth stages provides the promise of significant improvement in modeling canopy structure and dynamics.
Unfortunately, many of these concepts have been slow to be incorporated into our field crop and rangeland models.
Most existing mechanistic models are energy- or carbon-driven rather than developmentally driven.
To improve our plant growth models in the future, I propose that first the developmental sequence of the shoot apex of major crops and rangeland plants be summarized as has been done for wheat and maize, and then an object-oriented simulation model framework be developed that captures these developmental events.
This then provides the foundation for scientists to improve the quantification and integration of physiological and developmental processes.
As new understanding comes from functional genomics and other areas of study we can then improve our model(s) of canopy structure and dynamics.
Formally beginning with the German morphological school lead by Goethe, our understanding of fundamental principles governing plant canopy development has exploded.
Understanding the canopy is composed of phytomers produced by the population of shoot apices, recognizing each phytomer is in a different microenvironment that likely receives and sends signals differentially, creating morphological naming schemes for each phytomer/tissue, better quantifying of developmental processes of the shoot apex, and correlating developmental events with growth stages provides the promise of significant improvement in modeling canopy structure and dynamics.
Unfortunately, many of these concepts have been slow to be incorporated into our field crop and rangeland models.
Most existing mechanistic models are energy- or carbon-driven rather than developmentally driven.
To improve our plant growth models in the future, I propose that first the developmental sequence of the shoot apex of major crops and rangeland plants be summarized as has been done for wheat and maize, and then an object-oriented simulation model framework be developed that captures these developmental events.
This then provides the foundation for scientists to improve the quantification and integration of physiological and developmental processes.
As new understanding comes from functional genomics and other areas of study we can then improve our model(s) of canopy structure and dynamics.
Authors
G.S. McMaster
Keywords
morphology, phenology, development, wheat, Triticum aestivum, maize, Zea mays
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