Advances in crop growth modeling: A review of perennial crop and beneficial soil microorganism approaches

Lahoucine Ech-Chatir, Salah Er-Raki, Julio Cesar Rodriguez and Abdelilah Meddich

Agricultural Water Management, 2025, vol. 315, issue C

Abstract: World food systems are subject to many challenges related to land degradation, rapid population growth, climate change, and limited resources. Crop growth models are being recognized as efficient tools for agricultural research to investigate trends in crop yield production and address these challenges under various pedoclimatic, genotypic, and management conditions. Crop growth models have come a long way in terms of development and use in recent decades but are still bound to be improved, especially for various perennial crops and the incorporation of beneficial soil microorganisms. Based on research papers published since 1965 across all continents, this review gives a brief history of crop models, explores 44 selected process-based crop growth models, their origin, usefulness, and applicability, and discusses some of their characteristics and their application in water management in arid and semi-arid areas. For the first time, this review highlights the modeling approaches in simulating the effects of beneficial soil microorganisms on crop growth, including plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria and mycorrhizal fungi, and discusses the advances in modeling perennial crops by exploring 35 studies found for fruit trees, perennial legumes, and vegetables, as well as 45 studies on perennial forage and bioenergy grasses. In addition, the review discusses crop modeling applications in the context of precision agriculture when combined with machine learning and remote sensing. The review concludes by emphasizing key limitations and challenges facing the use of crop growth models. Accordingly, this review can be a valuable resource for researchers, providing insights into existing crop models with a view to what needs to be improved.

Keywords: Crop growth models; Crop simulation models; Agricultural systems; Perennial crops; Soil microorganisms; Precision agriculture (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378377425002628
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:agiwat:v:315:y:2025:i:c:s0378377425002628

DOI: 10.1016/j.agwat.2025.109548

Access Statistics for this article

Agricultural Water Management is currently edited by B.E. Clothier, W. Dierickx, J. Oster and D. Wichelns

More articles in Agricultural Water Management from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().