Use of the expolinear growth model to analyse the growth of faba bean, peas and lentils at three densities: Predictive use of the model

Abstract

The expolinear equation for crop growth (Goudriaan and Monteith, Annals of Botany 66: 695-701, 1990; Goudriaan, 1994. In: Monteith JL, Scott RK, Unsworth MH, eds. Resource capture by crops. Nottingham: Nottingham University Press, 99-110) has the potential to predict growth under specified environmental conditions. The choice of suitable parameters is discussed and tested using data from field experiments with faba bean, peas and lentils (Ishag and Dennett, Annals of Botany 82: 497-505. 1998). It is suggested that suitable parameters for predicting crop growth are the fraction of solar radiation intercepted at emergence, the extinction coefficient for solar radiation, the maximum fraction of radiation intercepted, the maximum relative growth rate and the maximum crop growth rate for a crop intercepting all the incident radiation. In the experiments considered, the differences in growth patterns were due mainly to differences in the maximum relative growth rate associated with differences in temperature.