A novel method for the sustainable management of wheat crops: exploration by simulation
2007
Chatelin , Marie-Hélène (INRA (France). UR 1002 Laboratoire sur les Organisations Industrielles dans l'Agro-Alimentaire) | Aubry , Christine (INRA (France). UMR 1048 Sciences pour l'Action et le Développement : Activités, Produits, Territoires) | Garcia , Frederick (INRA (France). UR 0875 Unité de recherche Biométrie et Intelligence Artificielle)
Designing crop management strategies to meet both environmental and economic objectives is a growing preoccupation for advisers and researchers, in the move towards sustainable development. We describe here a simple and original method designed to facilitate this task and appropriate field experimentation. This method involves the use of a multi-stage procedure in which a simulation tool is used to explore a decisional space defined by an expert. As a case study, we designed crop management strategies for winter wheat in the Paris Basin. We aimed to maintain a high wheat yield of more than 9 t.ha-1 and grain quality whilst limiting the risks of nitrogen pollution by maintaining post-harvest soil nitrogen content below 30 kg.ha-1. The method was applied on two representative field situations with contrasting soil nitrogen supplies. We used the "DéciBlé" simulation tool to evaluate management strategies, expressed as sets of decision rules, for the possible technical choices such as cultivar, sowing date, sowing density and nitrogen supply. Our step-by-step approach involved progressive limitation of the decisional domain to be explored, and some of the solutions obtained were not intuitive. This method has two main novel features: (1) a simple design dealing with a complex problem, without reduction to a single judgement criterion and (2) results expressed as action plans similar to those implemented by farmers.
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