Evaluation of spring wheat and barley crop calender models for the 1979 crop year

During the Large Area Crop Inventory Experiment, spring wheat planting date and crop development stage estimates based on historical normals were improved by the use of the Feyerherm planting date and Robertson spring wheat crop calendar models. The Supporting Research Crop Calendar Project element modified the Robertson model to reduce bias at cardinal growth stages within the growing season. These models were tested in 1980 along with a state-of-the-art barley model (Williams) against a ground-truth data set from 49 calendar year 1979 segments in the U.S. Great Plains spring wheat and barley region.