Author:

Keywords:

AquaCrop, weed competition, model performance, barley, wheat, Science & Technology, Life Sciences & Biomedicine, Agriculture, Multidisciplinary, Agriculture, RELATIVE LEAF-AREA, PROCESS-ECONOMIC-MODEL, YIELD LOSS, DEFICIT IRRIGATION, MANAGEMENT DECISIONS, COMPETITION MODELS, BOLIVIAN ALTIPLANO, SPRING BARLEY, AVENA-FATUA, FARM-LEVEL, 07 Agricultural and Veterinary Sciences, Agronomy & Agriculture, 30 Agricultural, veterinary and food sciences

Abstract:

Weed infestation is a major yield reducing factor that also decreases crop water productivity. Yet, weeds are often neglected in crop productivity simulation studies, because existing empirical equations and mechanistic models are not widely applicable or have a high demand for input data and calibration. For that reason, AquaCrop, a widely applicable crop water productivity model, was expanded with a weed management module which requires only two easily obtainable input variables: (i) relative leaf cover of weeds, and (ii) weed induced increase of total canopy cover. Using these inputs, AquaCrop directly simulates soil water content, crop canopy development and production as it is observed in weed-infested fields. Despite this simple approach, AquaCrop performed well to simulate soil water content in the root zone, canopy cover, dry aboveground crop biomass during the season and at maturity, and yield of barley and wheat grown under different weed infestation levels and environments. The current study illustrates that the AquaCrop model can be used to assess the effect of weed infestation on crop growth and production, using a simple approach that is applicable to diverse environmental and agronomic conditions, even in data-scarce regions.