Determination of Cultivar Coefficients of Peanut Lines for Breeding Applications of the CSM‐CROPGRO‐Peanut Model

Abstract

ABSTRACT Breeding applications of a crop simulation model require cultivar coefficients for a large number of breeding lines, making the recommendation to determine these coefficients from field experiments conducted over several environments impractical. The objective of this study was to confirm our earlier findings that experimental data from only two seasons are sufficient to determine the cultivar coefficients of peanut lines for breeding applications of the CSM‐CROPGRO Peanut model. Seventeen peanut lines varying in yield level, seed type and maturity duration were selected for this study and were grown during the 2002 rainy and 2003 dry seasons. Data were collected on plant development and growth characteristics and were then used for model calibration to determine the cultivar coefficients of the individual peanut lines. A separate experiment was conducted in the dry season of 2004 for model evaluation. The calibration resulted in cultivar coefficients that provided simulated values of the various traits that were close to their corresponding observed values. Similar results were obtained for model evaluation with an independent data set. Differences among peanut lines were also expressed in the derived cultivar coefficients. These results confirmed our earlier finding that the cultivar coefficients of peanut lines derived from detailed experimental data for two seasons are sufficiently accurate for breeding applications of the CSM‐CROPGRO‐Peanut model.