Modelling water flow, nitrogen uptake and production for wheat

Abstract

Soil water and temperature conditions were simulated for three years at three sites in the Netherlands, using a model named SOIL. Observed water table depths from one site with a sandy loam soil indicated bypass flow in macropores. Nitrogen turnover was simulated using the output of SOIL as input to a nitrogen model. To improve the nitrogen model, a crop-growth submodel was introduced, and simulations were compared with measured data for two seasons and three fertilizer treatments at the three sites. Mineral-N in the soil after application of fertilizer was substantially higher in the simulation than indicated by measurements in 4 out of 18 simulations. Regression analyses showed that simulated mineral-N content in the uppermost metre explained 64% of the observed variation. The corresponding values for nitrogen content (N _ta) and biomass (W _ta) of aboveground tissues were 86 and 93%, respectively. With a few exceptions annual values of W _ta and N _ta were simulated with an accuracy of approximately 20%. A sensitivity test showed that growth parameters and especially the light use efficiency parameter strongly influenced biomass production for fertilized treatments whereas the control of nitrogen uptake from soil was most important for non-fertilized treatments.