European Journal of Agronomy 13 2000 309 – 322
Using the CERES-Maize model in a semi-arid Mediterranean environment. Evaluation of model
performance
Be´chir Ben Nouna
a
, Nader Katerji
b
, Marcello Mastrorilli
c,
a
CIHEAM Istituto Agronomico Mediterraneo,
70010
Valenzano, Italy
b
INRA, Unite´ de Recherche En6ironnement et Grandes Cultures,
78850
Thi6er6al-Grignon, France
c
Istituto Sperimentale Agronomico, 6ia Celso Ulpiani
5
, I-
70125
Bari, Italy Received 20 July 1999; received in revised form 1 February 2000; accepted 10 May 2000
Abstract
The CERES-Maize model was tested in a semi-arid Mediterranean environment during a period of 2 years under three different soil moisture conditions well-watered and two limited irrigation regimes. In well-watered plots,
growth and yield were adequately simulated by the model differences between simulated values and observations were less than 10. Results suggest that the absence of air humidity among the model inputs does not limit the
CERES-Maize performance, even under dry-air conditions. On the contrary, under mild soil water shortage, CERES-Maize underestimated the leaf area index LAI up to 26 for maximum LAI, above-ground biomass up
to 23 and grain yield up to 15. Mismatches between observations and predictions increased with water stress level by up to 46, 29 and 23 for maximum LAI, biomass and grain yield, respectively. It is suggested that the
functions describing leaf growth and senescence and those calculating the soil water deficit functions should be modified to adapt CERES-Maize to Mediterranean environments. © 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords
:
Maize; CERES-Maize model; Water stress; Mediterranean environment www.elsevier.comlocateeja
1. Introduction
In the
Mediterranean region,
soil water
availability is the major factor determining the length of the growing period and final yield. Rain-
fall varies from season to season, both in inter- seasonal distribution and seasonal total, causing
the total quantity of plant-available soil water, as well as, its distribution over the growing season to
vary from year-to-year. Management mainly irri- gation can affect soil water content in order to
match crop water requirements with seasonal wa- ter supply. To do so, a better understanding of
the use of available soil water by a crop is neces- sary and this can be obtained by an integrated
Corresponding author. Tel.: + 39-080-5475014; fax: + 39- 080-5475023.
E-mail address
:
marcello.mastrorillitin.it M. Mastrorilli. 1161-030100 - see front matter © 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
PII: S 1 1 6 1 - 0 3 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 6 3 - 0
approach using a dynamic model of crop growth. The model must be conceptually appropriate for
the research in hand and it must have input requirements which can be met and must give
reasonable predictions. Models are presently available for many crops, but these have generally
been developed in temperate locations.
We chose the CERES-Maize model Jones and Kiniry, 1986, because we thought it appropriate
for fulfilling these criteria. It was tested under temperate conditions characterised by the absence
of water stress in North America Hodges et al., 1987; Piper and Weiss, 1990 and in Europe,
precisely in Belgium Lahrouni et al., 1993, in France Lorgeou, 1991; Plantureux et al., 1991
and in Germany Entenmann et al., 1989. To our knowledge, the model has not been tested under
Mediterranean
conditions Ruget
and Bon-
homme, 1991, characterised by both atmospheric and soil drought Hamdy and Lacirignola, 1999.
Results of these tests show some limitations in the use of CERES-Maize. Carberry et al. 1989
tested the model in semi-arid regions of tropical Australia and proposed new modules for phenol-
ogy, leaf development and increase of biomass. Phenological module is not precise in the case of
water excess in the soil Hodges et al., 1987; Carberry et al., 1989 or in the case of cold
seasons Liu et al., 1989. Finally, Carberry 1991 underlines that water stress does not have any
effect on phenology and proposes a correction. Lahrouni and Ledent 1991 show the conse-
quences of biased estimations of phenological stage duration on leaf area and dry matter parti-
tioning simulated by the CERES-Maize. Finally, grain yield and its components can be overesti-
mated or underestimated by the model in rainy or dry seasons, respectively Wu et al., 1989.
The objective of this study was to compare the predictions of CERES-Maize with observed data
from field experiments, in which the moisture regime varied, but nitrogen nutrition was always
adequate. The results of this study allow us to evaluate model performance under contrasting
soil water conditions in a Mediterranean environ- ment. Moreover, this study allows us to identify
model subroutines that should be modified to improve to fit better in the observed Mediter-
ranean conditions.
2. Materials and methods
