How can the SPARC-Wheat model be used as an agricultural management tool?
The SPARC-Wheat model can be used by agricultural producers or consultants as a planning tool to address management issues related to planting date, plant population, cultivar selection, fertilizer timing and amount, irrigation scheduling, and wheat-fallow rotations. When combined with DSSAT, the user can evaluate the relative merits of many management strategies with respect to crop yield, crop quality, net return, water use, nitrogen leaching, and identify the best strategy using criteria based on productivity, risk, profit, environmental quality, and soil degradation. Although other management options such as fertilizer placement, row spacing, tillage operation, pest and weed management, soil erosion, and soil salinity are not included in the present version of the SPARC-Wheat model, we do plan to include them in the future development of the model. DSSAT is also able to sequentially operate models to simulate crop rotations and to analyze crop yield and net return as well as long-t
