Minutes of the Twelfth ICASA Open Forum
On Crop Modeling and Decision Support Systems
ASA-CSSA-SSSA 2008 Annual Meetings
Houston, Texas
Monday, 6 Oct. 2008, 7:30-9:00 PM
Meeting chairs: Jeff White & Gerrit Hoogenboom

Introductions

ICASA in brief: Participants were reminded that ICASA ≠DSSAT! ICASA is for users of any systems applications.

Approximately 20 people attended.

Report from the ICASA Board – Jeff White, USWCL

  • Progress on the “reinvention process” and future of ICASA
  • Gerrit Hoogenboom reported that we have over 450 members.
  • Board terms expire soon, so the co-chairs need to review the composition
  • We continue to seek a clearer role for ICASA. Without financial resources, our options for activities are limited to what members do on a volunteer basis. The co-chairs solicited suggestions from the board, but the response was limited. The co-chairs are also considering a consultation with early-career members of ICASA and are seeking nominations.

    Meanwhile, members are urged to participate in discussions posted via the listserver and to use the forum at http://groups.google.com/group/ICASA?lnk=iggc

 

Recent Meetings/Workshops/Publications

  • Biological Systems Simulation Group – USDA ARS, Temple, TX

  • April 19-22, 2008. International Symposium on Crop Modeling and Decision Support. Nanjing, China. This meeting included a discussion concerning the need for a new vehicle for promoting simulation modeling, which would seem to duplicate ICASA. No action was taken at the meeting.

  • May 12-21, 2008. DSSAT Version 4.5 Training. Griffin, Georgia, USA Approximately 60 people attended the two week course. This is about twice the intended size and thus demonstrates the level of interest in modeling.

  • May 22-23, 2008. The Int Consortium for Sugar Cane Modeling held a meeting immediately after the DSSAT workshop. Two sugar cane models were released, and ICSCM is working well.

  • June 10-13, 2008. Partnerships and Solutions for Agriculture and Natural Resources. St. Pete Beach, FL There was a lot of discussion on climate risk and climate change.

  • Oct. 1-3, 2008. iPlant workshop, Oracle, AZ. The iPlant initiative seeks to use information technology to help plant sciences (in a very broad sense) to attain new levels of productivity and understanding. The workshop looked at proposals that would integrate genomic, genetic, phenotypic and environmental data to improve prediction/understanding of adaptation. One group emphasized climate change and use of ecophysiological models. A full proposal or set of proposals is expected emerge from subsequent discussions, which may be viewed at: http://iplantcollaborative.org/community-discussion-forum

 

Upcoming Events (details at www.ICASA.net)

  • Oct. 9, 2008. 40 Years Theory and Model at Wageningen UR.

  • Oct. 6-17, 2008. DSSAT training course in Accra, Ghana. Mainly for West Africa but two Indian scientists are participating.

  • March 10-12, 2009. Integrated Assessment of Agriculture and Sustainable Develpement; Setting the Agenda for Science and Policy. The Netherlands The deadlinefor abstracts has been extended to Oct 25.
  • March 10-12, 2009. International Scientific Congress on Climate Change. Copenhagen, Denmark.

  • Week of May 12, 2009 - Biological Systems Simulation Group. U Georgia, Griffin, Georgia. Gerrit Hoogenboom is especially interested in attracting more graduate students to the meetings.

  • August 23-29, 2009. Farming Systems Design 2009, An international symposium on Methodologies for Integrated Analysis of Farm Production Systems. Monterey, CA. This follows the 2007 meeting in Catania, Italy.

 

Reports from Ongoing or New Working Groups Under ICASA or otherwise

  • HarvestChoice (CGIAR) – Paul Wilkens (IFDC) circulated a flier from the HarvestChoice project for Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. The project is using crop simulation models to assess potential impacts of different activities and is interested in broadening its activities. Jawoo Koo and Stan Wood (IFPRI) plan to hold a modeling workshop to provide technical support for this work.

  • Data standards

    • The USDA ARS GRACEnet has the objective of creating a database of field experiments where greenhouse gas fluxes are measured. The data are being collected in a format that should facilitate testing simulation models.

    • The article “Publishing Agronomic Data” (Agron J. 100:1396–1400) mentions the value of data standards. In the ASA Div.A-3 business meeting, there was further discussion of data management, and there is widespread interest in this topic. Frits van Evert and Jeff White may organize a symposium or special for the 2009 ASA-CSSA-SSSA meetings.

  • Global change – Jim Jones briefly described plans of Cynthia Rosenzweig to develop a global project for an international effort to strengthen modeling of climate change. Cynthia is sounding out possible donors for interest.

  • Modeling rangelands and grazing – Samuel Adiku noted the lack of ecophysiological models suitable for grazed rangelands, especially one that considers changes in species composition. The suggestion was made to create a working group on this topic.

 

The ICASA web site update (http://www.icasa.net )

  • Data Exchange – still underused.

  • ICASA Forum – The web site was converted to Google Groups because the previous site required too much maintenance. People are urged to form discussion groups through the ICASA on-line Forum (http://groups.google.com/group/ICASA?lnk=iggc)

 

Software & data news

  • APSIM – New version was recently released that uses XML file formats

  • EPIC – APEX has been recoded from EPIC to provide a modular version suitable for farm and landscape modeling.

  • SEAMLESS – This large European project ends early in 2009, but efforts are underway to create a follow-up collaboration.

  • DSSAT4.5 – In beta testing. The final release is expected in early 2009.

  • SimCLIM – This is a commercial software product that provides daily weather datasets that incorporate global change scenarios based on GCM outputs.

  • The WISE soil database is available on the ICASA web site.

  • NASA/POWER datasets – This set of global daily historic weather data appears useful for regional characterizations at continental scales. Temperature data show good agreement with station data for the US in regions without large elevation differences or with large coastal areas (see Ag For Met 148:1574-1584). Solar radiation data show even more promise.

 

Follow-up discussion by board members

                Jim Jones suggested that ICASA think harder about mechanisms to promote real collaboration. Most people need to see a clear benefit from collaboration. In research this typically involves either access to additional resources (financial or otherwise) or opportunities to communicate results at meetings or in publications. Jim suggested preparing a book comparing modeling approaches, data management, tools and applications. This might be linked to a conference (e.g., for HarvestPlus or in relation to global change). Comments on this suggestion are welcome.

 

 

 

Useful information: 

 

 

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