Performance of SUBSTOR model on growth and yield of potato varieties under different planting dates in a sub-tropical environment

Abstract

\nA field experiment was conducted during Rabi season of two consecutive years 2016-17 and 2017-18 at\xa0research farm, Department of Agricultural Meteorology, CCSHAU, Hisar under sub-tropical environment of Haryana.\xa0DSSAT (v4.7) family of SUBSTOR module was employed to simulate the comparison of observed values\xa0with simulated values under field conditions with a view to a view to assess the performance of model. The model\xa0was calibrated for (2016-17) and derived their genetic coefficient and further outputs were validated for second\xa0year (2017-18) experiments. Calibration and validation were done on crop grown under four planting dates viz. 8th\xa0Oct. (D1), 22th Oct. (D2), 5th Nov. (D3) and 23rd Nov (D4) in main plot treatment and sub-plots treatments consisted\xa0of three varieties Kufri Bahar (V1), Kufri Pushkar (V2) and Kufri Surya (V3) were tested in split plot design with four\xa0replications. The results affirms that model overestimated the phenology (days to tuber initiation and physiological\xa0maturity) and growth and yield parameters like accumulation of maximum LAI, tuber and biological yield. The\xa0model’s simulation performance was found satisfactory, and the model overestimated with fair agreement (±10).\xa0Performance of model tested with help of Mean absolute error (MAE), Mean bias error (MBE), Root mean square\xa0error (RMSE), r (correlation) and PE (Percent error). The model had capability for optimum potato crop management,\xa0phenology prediction and future yield estimation. \n