Evaluation of Simulated Soil Water Content, Dry Matter and Grain Yield of Winter wheat (cv. Shiraz) using WSM and AquaCrop Models

In agricultural development many factors such as weather conditions, soil, fertilizer, irrigation timing and amount are involved that are necessary to be considered by the plant growth simulation models. Therefore, in this study, the values of soil water content at different depths of soil profile, dry matter production and grain yield of winter wheat were simulated using AquaCrop and WSM models. The irrigation treatments were rain-fed, 0/5, 0/8, 1 and 1/2 times of full irrigation conducted in Agricultral College of Shiraz University during 2009-2010 and 2010-2011. The models were calibrated using measured data in the first year of experiment and validated by the second year data. The accuracy of soil water simulation was used to refer to the accuracy of simulated evapotranspiration. The accuracy of soil water content at different layers of root depth in the validation period was good for the WSM model (Normalized Root Mean Squer Error, NRMSE= 0/14). But the AquaCrop model showed less accuracy for soil water content (NRMSE=0/26). However, the values of predicted and measured crop evapotranspiration were close together at full irrigation treatment, the accuracy of AquaCop predictions was decreased with inceasing water stress. WSM model has had a good estimation of the dry matter and grain yield simulation with NRMSE of 0/15 and 0/18, respectively. However, they were simulated with less accuracy in the AquaCrop model with NRMSE of 0/19 and 0/39.