Training the Next Generation of Agronomists on How to Use Crop Models for Cropping System Design
An Undergraduate Course entitled “Use of Crop Models for Cropping Systems Design” was organized by The Department of Crop Production, Faculty of Agronomy at the Univesidad de la República in Uruguay. The Undergraduate Course was held at the Estación Experimental Dr. Mario A. Cassinoni, Paysandú, Uruguay during the week of April 15-19, 2024 and attended by 32 students from Agricultural Engineering. The course was coordinated and taught by Gonzalo Rizzo with assistance provided by Santiago Alvarez.
The participants learned about the processes that regulate crop development and growth and the interaction of crops with soil water. This was a hands-on course where participants had to quality control weather data, prepare weather and soil input files to run the Cropping System Model (CSM) of Decision Support System for Agrotechnology Transfer (DSSAT). Students explored concepts and approaches to calibrate cultivars for different crops. However, the main focus of this course was to use DSSAT as a tool to support agronomic decisions. To that aim, participants worked on questions that have to be answered when designing a cropping system or managing a single crop, and then, used DSSAT to find answer to those question via analysis of CSM output.
