Dr. Joe T. Ritchie, one of the founding Fathers of ICASA and its first Co-Chair, retired from his position as Professor and Homer Nowlin Chair at Michigan State University on December 31, 2000. Joe has been one of the most productive and influential researchers in the world in the area of crop and soil modeling. His unique ability to simplify the complexities of these dynamic systems for practical applications has been one of the most important contributions that helped crop modeling to evolve out of the confinements of individual scientist's laboratories, into the real-world realm of practical applications. He has taught many students the importance of functional models and has influenced many other modeling efforts to adopt this successful philosophy. His CERES crop-soil models have been used by thousands of people worldwide for different purposes. They have provided the basic components of the DSSAT, and other models have adopted soil water and nitrogen components from CERES. We have seen these models tested all over the world and used in applications ranging from management of uniform fields, spatially varying fields, farms, and watersheds to analyses of area-wide crop yields and studying climate change effects on agriculture in countries around the world. It is really amazing to see the web of influence that he has created through his models and thinking.

    In honor of Professor Dr. Ritchie, a special symposium titled “Crop Models in Research and Practice” was held during the 2000 Annual Meetings of the American Society of Agronomy (ASA). During this symposium Joe was recognized by ASA, by those of us who have worked with Joe in various capacities, and by many others who have been influenced by Joe’s work. The symposium included an oral presentation session and two poster sessions. The abstracts of the papers presented during this symposium can be found on this web site.