ABSTRACT
Modelling crop growth and grain yield in maize cultivation Alam Sher, Xiaoli Liu and Jincai Li, Anhui Agricultural University, China; and Youhong Song, Anhui Agricultural University, China and The University of Queensland, Australia
1 Introduction
2 Crop modelling principles
3 Predicting crop development under drought and heat stress
4 Predicting biomass production under drought and heat stress
5 Predicting grain yield formation under drought and heat stress
6 Conclusions
7 Where to look for further information
8 References
Maize is one of three most important grain crops in addressing global food security. It is a C4 crop with high productivity, but requires considerable water during the growing season. Maize can be grown over a wide range of climate scenarios, but performs especially well in warmer temperate regions and humid subtropics. However, maize cultivation is constrained by water availability worldwide. There have been continuous efforts in breeding new maize varieties adapted to diminished water use (Gong et al., 2015). It is noted that drought stress, often accompanied with heat stress in summer, is projected to be more frequent and severe due to global climate change (Feller and Vaseva, 2014). Therefore, it is essential to predict likely drought impacts on maize production and then take action, which largely relies on robust crop models. An emerging challenge is to enhance the ability of crop models in predicting crop growth, development and grain yield under a wide range of environmental conditions (Jin et al., 2016).
