Insights from utilizing data of different quality levels for simulating barley performance under Nordic conditions: APSIM model evaluation

Crop model-aided ideotyping can accelerate the breeding of resilient barley cultivars. Yet, the accuracy of process descriptions in the crop models still requires substantial improvement, which is only possible with high-quality experimental data. Despite being demanded frequently, such data is still rarely available, especially for Northern European barley production. This study is one of the first to contribute to closing this existing data gap through the targeted collection of high-quality experimental data in pluri-annual, multi-location spring barley field trials in Denmark. With this data the prediction accuracy of APSIM significantly increased in contrast to commonly utilized lower quality datasets. Using this data for model calibration resulted in more accurate predictions of in-season plant development and important state variables (e.g. final grain yield and biomass). The model’s prediction accuracy can ultimately be further improved by examining remaining model weaknesses that were discoverable with the high quality data. Process descriptions regarding, e.g., early and late leaf development, soil water dynamics and respective plant response appeared to require further improvement. By illustrating the effect of data quality on model performance we reinforce the need for more model-guided field experiments.