Traditional decision support systems based on crop simulation models are normally site-specific. In policy formulation, however, spatial variability of crop production often need to be evaluated due to different soil conditions, weather conditions and agricultural practices within a target-region. To address the spatial variability, a spatial model “Spatial EPIC” was developed based on a crop s...

The availability of nitrogen is one of the major limiting factors to crop growth. In the developed world, farmers use unsustainable levels of inorganic fertilisers to promote crop production. In contrast, in the developing world inorganic fertilisers are often not available and small-holder farmers suffer the resultant poor yields. Finding alternatives to inorganic fertilisers is critical for s...

Reducing and off-setting anthropogenic emissions of CO(2) and other greenhouse gases (GHGs) are important strategies of mitigating the greenhouse effect. Thus, the need for developing carbon (C) neutral and renewable sources of energy is more than ever before. Use of crop residue as a possible source of feedstock for bioenergy production must be critically and objectively assessed because of it...

Climate change could pose a major challenge to efforts towards strongly increase food production over the coming decades. However, model simulations of future climate-impacts on crop yields differ substantially in the magnitude and even direction of the projected change. Combining observations of current maximum-attainable yield with climate analogues, we provide a complementary method of asses...

This paper demonstrates how crop diversification impacts on two outcomes of climate smart agriculture; increased productivity (legume and cereal crop productivity) and enhanced resilience (household income, food security, and nutrition) in rural Zimbabwe. Using data from over 500 smallholder farmers, we jointly estimate crop diversification and each of the outcome variables within a conditional...

Field research for exploring the impact of winter cover crops (WCCs) integration into cropping systems is resource intensive, time-consuming and offers limited application beyond study area. To bridge this gap, we used APSIM model, to simulate corn (Zea mays L.)-rye (Secale cereale L.)-corn-rye corn-rye-soybean (Glycine max rotations in comparison with corn-corn corn-soybean across state Illino...

Modeling of plant metabolism offers new approaches to improve the understanding of complex biological processes. In this paper we present a framework for the constraintbased stoichiometric analysis of crop plant metabolic models, which combines tools for (1) model reconstruction, (2) model analysis (i.e. flux balance analysis), and (3) model visualization. The approach is illustrated by describ...

a Department of Crop and Soil Science, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR, 97331, USA b Cereal Crops Research Unit, USDA-ARS, 501 Walnut St., Madison, WI 53705, USA c Department of Agronomy, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI 53706, USA d Department of Plant Science, McGill University, Ste Anne de Bellevue, QC H9X 3V9 Canada e Research Institute for Bioresources, Okayama University, Kuras...

Arthropods are mobile, and often move beyond the classical bounds of ecological field studies. We have done landscape analyses to explore the influence of the surrounding landscape on spiders in winter wheat fields and on their potential to control cereal aphids. The densities of many spider species were enhanced by high percentages of non-crop habitats at scales ranging from 95 m to 3 km radiu...