Development and problems of crop models

The development and problems of crop models were reviewed taking CERES-Wheat and Maize models as examples. Simulation of radiation use under condition of different canopy structures and soil water and nitrogen stresses to crop growth should be forth studied to discuss the mechanism and to improve the predicted properties of models simulation. At present, Most of the available crop models have been developed under frame of one dimensional crop-soil-atmospheric systems. It is suggested that the one-dimensional crop model can be extended to three-dimensional ones by incorporating the simulation of biological chemical recycle and the routing approaches of distributed hydrological models, which is the application demand of regional water and soil resources evaluation and management and can accelerate the development of crop models.