RICEPSM is a physiologically-based rice population model, which simulates the seasonal numbers and mass of roots, culms, leaf sheaths, leaf blades, panicle vegetative components, and grains for the main plants and tillers at 40 Degree-days (>10⁰C) time step. The interface of RICEPSM enables us to analyze the relative importance of the various factors, both genetic and environmental, to select optimal timing of agronomic practices, and to test proposed management strategies.

Input Data

RICEPSM uses meteorological, agronomic, and genetic data as inputs. The data can be entered or selected via user interface. The interface for RICEPSM consists of a series of input screens, enabling the user to modify any of the several default parameters at the beginning of simulation. Three kinds of parameters can be modified through the interface:

1)   General data:   The data includes selection of the weather file, the geographical location of the rice field, planting date, plant density at emergence and first day of permanent flooding.

2) Soil and Nitrogen data:  The input data includes initial nitrogen content in the flooding water and soil, percentage of organic matter in the soil, organic matter C/N ratio, and the timing and amount of nitrogen applications.

3) Cultivar specific plant growth parameters:   These parameters include the number of nodes per main stem at harvest, seed weight at planting, degree-days from panicle differentiation to heading, light extinction coefficient, maximum node production rate and critical S/D ratio for tiller death.

Program Output

RICEPSM outputs nitrogen and total mass for leaf, stem, root, panicle vegetative component, and grain for main plants and tillers, number of nodes per main stem, total number of tiller per m^-2, and potential supply/demand ratio at 40 degree-day time step. The output files are in the form text files, but can be retrieved by a spreadsheet application, such as MS Excel, for further statistical analyzing.

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