Simulation model for plant growth in controlled environment systems

The role of the mathematical model is to relate the individual processes to environmental conditions and the behavior of the whole plant. Using the controlled-environment facilities of the phytotron at North Carolina State University for experimentation at the whole-plant level and methods for handling complex models, researchers developed a plant growth model to describe the relationships between hierarchial levels of the crop production system. The fundamental processes that are considered are: (1) interception of photosynthetically active radiation by leaves, (2) absorption of photosynthetically active radiation, (3) photosynthetic transformation of absorbed radiation into chemical energy of carbon bonding in solube carbohydrates in the leaves, (4) translocation between carbohydrate pools in leaves, stems, and roots, (5) flow of energy from carbohydrate pools for respiration, (6) flow from carbohydrate pools for growth, and (7) aging of tissues. These processes are described at the level of organ structure and of elementary function processes. The driving variables of incident photosynthetically active radiation and ambient temperature as inputs pertain to characterization at the whole-plant level. The output of the model is accumulated dry matter partitioned among leaves, stems, and roots; thus, the elementary processes clearly operate under the constraints of the plant structure which is itself the output of the model.