FROM LANDSCAPE TO CROP
Crop Modeling Platform
Center for Applied Systems Analysis, College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences (CAES), University Mohammed VI Polytechnic (UM6P)
Choose a location. Explore its soil and weather. Build a transparent crop experiment.
This can take a few minutes. Keep this page open.
KNOW YOUR INPUTS
Environmental input review
Water supply & atmospheric demand
Rainfall Reference ET₀Monthly totals in mm. Partial months and missing days are labelled.
Inspect the daily weather table
Soil properties through the profile
SoilGrids estimates at the selected point. Organic carbon is in g/kg; bulk density is in g/cm³; texture and coarse fragments are in percent.
Profiles show layer averages over their actual depth intervals. Depth increases downward; gaps indicate missing values. Hover over a point for its value.
Soil property table
SOIL WATER & MOVEMENT
Hydraulic properties · HiHydroSoil v2.0
Water contents are volumetric percentages; Ksat is in mm/day. Default field capacity is pF 2 (about −10 kPa), and wilting point is pF 4.2 (about −1554 kPa). These are estimates from soil properties, not field measurements.
You can replace estimates with local values below. Edits are labelled “User supplied”; add a source note and confirm the field-capacity definition. Changes apply to this session and its downloads.
On smaller screens, scroll the table sideways to see the field-capacity definition and review labels.
FutureWater HiHydroSoil documentation ↗ · Simons, Koster & Droogers (2020), FutureWater Report 213. Original values and dataset details are retained in the full input record.
Confirm the hydraulic profile, effective rooting depth, initial soil water, crop parameters, sowing date and irrigation management. Valid hydraulic values alone do not make a calibrated simulation.
Trace every assumption
Reference ET₀ uses FAO-56 Penman–Monteith with reference-surface radiation calculations. Wind speed is approximated from daily mean wind components and may underestimate daily mean speed and ET₀.
ERA5-Land documentation ↗ · SoilGrids documentation ↗ · FAO-56 method ↗
Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information. Neither the European Commission nor ECMWF is responsible for its use. Soil data: ISRIC SoilGrids, CC BY 4.0. Hydraulic properties: FutureWater HiHydroSoil v2.0, via the GEE Community Catalog. Elevation: NASA/USGS SRTM.
RAINFED WHEAT
AquaCrop water balance
Generic wheat parameters · teaching scenario · not calibrated for a Moroccan cultivar.
Switch models here and run again using the loaded weather and soil. Dates, chosen depth and initial water stay as entered. DSSAT interprets this depth as a root-distribution setting. Completed runs appear in the comparison below.
Compare models · same loaded inputs
Shared weather, soil inputs, crop and season settings. An active crop workbook fixes the supplied settings across runs; the workbook identifier is shown below. Each engine retains its own parameter definitions, inherited reference defaults and soil representation; APSIM and DSSAT include nitrogen stress. DSSAT’s chosen depth controls root distribution rather than a hard root-tip limit. Cultivars and nitrogen settings differ between engines. Whole-cob yield and grain yield are labelled separately. Totals cover each engine’s reported days; maturity can end runs on different dates.
Annual results
Each season starts with the same soil water and nitrogen settings. Weather between crop seasons is not simulated.
Inspect daily simulation results
Weather adjustments & model provenance
A QUESTION TO START WITH
Does the same rainfall mean the same water availability?
Compare rainfall timing with evaporative demand, then consider how soil texture and depth change the water available to cereal roots.