Conference on International Research on Food Security, Natural Resource Management and Rural Development Model Comparison for Simulating Upland Rice Production in Small-holder Farming Systems in West Africa: Steps in EPIC Evaluation on Highly Weathered Soil (Ikenne, Nigeria)

Crop models are known to be based on the theory of crop physiology for describing the dynamic process of crop growth. However, uncertainties in model application under data limited conditions are a core problem of model application. Therefore the test of the performance of field scale crop models under different agro-ecological conditions is a prerequisite for the evaluation of the impact of management strategies. The aim of this study was to determine an appropriate model in the presence of controlled experimental data compared to the range of data available under farmer’s conditions in rain-fed agriculture. At this stage of the study a calibration exercise was conducted at the Ikenne experimental station in Nigeria (West Africa). The results show the accuracy of the model to simulate NERICA1 (NEw Rice for AfriCA) under different fertilization levels. However, the calibration with more data should continue to improve the range of model validity.