Calibration and validation of CERES-wheat and APSIM models for different wheat varieties in Raipur district of Chhattisgarh

Two crop simulation models with CERES-Wheat and APSIM models were calibrated and validated for three wheat varieties (Kanchan, HD2967 and CG1013) under three different sowing dates (D1: 30th Nov, D2: 10th Dec, D3: 20th Dec) in the Raipur district of Chhattisgarh. Experiments was carried out at Research Farm College of Agriculture, Raipur, during the rabi season 2021-22 & 2022-23. Calibration was done by 2021-22 and validation was done by 2022-23 field data. RMSE and Error Percentage were used to evaluate the performance of models. The results indicated that both models could predict growth parameters & yield with reasonable accuracy, as evidenced by low root mean square error (RMSE) values and error percentages. For the CERES-Wheat model was RMSE for the anthesis period ranges between 1.2 to 4.0 days and the error percentage was varied between 2.6% to 9.3% across the varieties and sowing dates. The APSIM model showed even lower RMSE values ranging from 0.6 to 2.9 days and error percentage was noticed between 1.3% to 6.8%. The RMSE values of grain yield ranges between 38.7 to 125.3 kg/ha for CERES-Wheat and 49.0 to 139.8 kg/ha for the APSIM model. Models predicted growth parameters & yield accurately with less than 10% of error percentages. So, both the models will be used for climate change studies & natural resource management applications.