When the Workshop Begins
The training workshop and seminar program will start on December
1 and end December 11,2003. It will be held on the Chiang Mai University
campus (CMU), Multiple Cropping Center, Faculty of Agriculture,
Chiang Mai University, Thailand. International participants should
plan to arrive two days before the program begins to adjust to time
zone differences and recover from travel fatigue.
Program Goal and Objectives
The overall goal of this training and seminary program is to familiarize
participants with a comprehensive computer model for the simulation
of crop growth and yield, soil and plant water, nutrient and carbon
dynamics and their application to real work problems.
Rationale
Today more than ever, increased food production and security depend
on judicious use of resources. In addition, issues such as climate
change, climate variability, soil carbon sequestration and the long-term
impact on food production and food security and environmental sustainability,
have become important. Many weather, soil, genetic and management
factors affect the way a crop will respond to irrigation, fertilizer
and other management practices. Determining appropriate crop management
strategies under these uncertainties has major economic and environmental
implications. Computer simulation models of the soil/plant/atmosphere
system with user-friendly GIS interfaces can make a valuable contribution
to both furthering our understanding of the processes that determine
crop responses and predicting crop performance, resource use and
environmental impacts for different environments and management
scenarios. User-oriented simulation models greatly facilitate the
task of optimizing crop growth and deriving recommendations concerning
crop management. They can also be used to determine the potential
impact of climate change on crop production and long-term soil carbon
sequestration, carbon stock of a landscape, or provide management
scenarios for adapting to climate variability.
Specifically the program
will focus on:
- Operation of the new Windows-based Decision Support System for
Agrotechnology Transfer (DSSAT) Version 4 software.
- Description of the new DSSAT-Cropping System Model, CSM and
its modules, such as CROPGRO and CERES, and the science embedded
in the models.
- Minimum data requirements and experimental data collection for
systems simulation to address food security issue.
- Integration of crop simulation models with database management
and Geographical Information Systems.
- Application of the new DSSAT-CSM model to cope with food security
issue in SE region by improving the management of cropping systems,
especially rice-based cropping systems.
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