Evaluating the Efficiency of AquaCrop Model for Corn Plant Underwater and Fertilizer Management (Case study: Shush city)

Today, optimizing water consumption is one of the main priorities of agriculture. If on-farm water management is improved, water use efficiency will also increase. Farm water management can be done optimally with the help of simulation models. In this study,. This research is in the form of split plots with the main treatment of urea fertilizer (including 100, 80, and 50% of the fertilizer required for corn (N0, N1, and N2)) and sub-treatment of irrigation water (including irrigation of 100, 80 and 50% of water requirement). The plant (E0, E1, and E2) was executed with four replications. the model had the highest sensitivity to the two parameters of flowering time and pod filling time by seeds. Also, in model calibration to simulate corn yield, normalized water productivity (WP) and cover growth coefficient (CGC) values of 31 (g / m2) and 24.2% were obtained, respectively. In addition, according to the results of this study, the best and weakest corn yield simulations were related to N0E1 and N2E0 treatments, respectively. In general, the model had good simulation in low water and fertilizer stresses, so that in estimating the accuracy of performance simulation (N0E1 treatment), CE, RMSE, d, ME, and CRM values were equal to -0.2, respectively. , 0.32, 0.73, 3.37 and 0.01 were obtained. In general, according to the results of this study, the efficiency of the AquaCrop model for grain corn cultivation in Shush city was considered appropriate and this model can be used to manage water in cornfields.