Maize (Zea mays L.) is the cereal crop most produced in the world. According to FAO, maize farmers produced on average (2014-16) 1.04 billion tons of grain harvested in somewhat more than 185 million ha, for an average world yield of 5.6 ton/ha.

The first time DSSAT was released in 1989 it included four crop models: CERES-Maize (Jones and Kiniry, 1986), CERES-Wheat (Ritchie and Otter, 1985), SOYGRO (Wilkerson et al., 1983), and PNUTGRO (Boote et al., 1989). In spite of its 30+ years, CERES-Maize continues to be the most widely used maize model globally and remains the mother-seed of other maize models, including in APSIM (Keating et al., 2003) and the CSM-IXIM (Lizaso et al., 2011). A comprehensive review on the CERES family of models, including CERES-Maize, is available in Basso et al. (2016).

References

Basso, B., L. Liu and J.T. Ritchie. 2016. A comprehensive review of the CERES-Wheat, -Maize and –Rice Models’ Performances. Advances in Agronomy 136:27-132.

Boote, K.J., J.W. Jones, G. Hoogenboom, G.G. Wilkerson and S.S. Jagtap. 1987. PNUTGRO V1.0: Peanut crop growth simulation model. User’s Guide. Florida Agricultural Experiment Station Journal No. 8420. University of Florida, Gainesville, FL.

Jones, C.A., and J.R. Kiniry (Eds.). 1986. CERES-Maize: A simulation model of maize growth and development. Texas A&M Univ. Press, College Station.

Keating B.A., P.S. Carberry, G.L. Hammer et al. 2003. An overview of APSIM, a model designed for farming systems simulation. European Journal of Agronomy, 18, 267–288.

Lizaso, J.I., K.J. Boote, J.W. Jones, C.H. Porter, L. Echarte, M.E. Westgate, G. Sonohat. 2011. CSM-IXIM: A New Maize Simulation Model for DSSAT version 4.5. Agronomy Journal 103:766-779.

Ritchie, J.T., and S. Otter. 1985. Description and performance of CERES-Wheat: A user-oriented wheat yield model. p. 159–175. In ARS wheat yield project. ARS-38. Natl. Tech. Inf. Serv., Springfield, VA.

Wilkerson, G.G., J.W. Jones, K.J. Boote, K.T. Ingram and J.W. Mishoe. 1983a. Modeling soybean growth for management. Transactions of the ASAE 26(l):63-73.