MaCS4Plants

Ecophysiology elements for modelling

Purpose

Plant physiology is a sub-discipline of botany concerned with the functioning, or physiology, of individual plants. This digital pedagogic resource presents an overview of plant eco-physiological concepts involved in crop modelling

Thermal Time normalization.

Thermal time normalization makes it possible compare plant growth in terms off both organogenesis (organ numbering) and development (organ size) aspects.

Light interception: PAR, LAI and Beer-Lambert Law

Only part of light energy is used in plant crops. A limited fraction of the light spectrum is absorbed by leaves; this part is constrained by the upper leaf area and decreases in the canopy.

Photosynthesis. Light Use Efficiency.

The photosynthesis process converts absorbed light energy into biomass with a ratio roportional to the Light Use Efficiency.

Density effect

At individual plant level, density limits light absorption capabilities, and thus ynamically limits biomass production.

Biomass common pool

Biomass produced by the source organs (leaves) builds a common storage pool, or be shared among all competing growing organs.

Organ competition. Sinks

Growing organs compete for biomass allocation. They are sinks.

Process-based models.

Process-based models or crop models are designed to model and simulate biomass production.

This digital pedagogic resource is part of UVED “Plant growth and production dynamics” teaching resource.

Public

Students in biology or interested in plant functional modeling. Undergraduate notions of mathematics are welcome

Try it !

Walk through the course, and test your knowledge on plant ecophysiology elements for plant & crop models course contents and objectives

License

This package is available through Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license. A full description of the license can be found here .

References

On internet

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