Calibration of a Generic Crop Model for Sugarcane

Brazilian ethanol is attracting considerable interest on the international market due to its environmental benefits when used as a fuel and energy. Brazil is the largest producer of sugarcane in the world. The present estimated area (2006/2007) under sugarcane is 6.5 million hectares producing about 80 tonnes of fresh sugar cane stalks/hectare. The largest and most productive sugarcane-growing areas are in the southeast region of the country, led by São Paulo state, with around 60% of the country's total ethanol production. Given the current expansion of sugarcane fields, the application of a cropping simulation model could provide the technical support for analyzing the system, for better planning, management and monitoring. This study evaluated the performance of CropSyst (Stockle et al., 2003) in simulating the above-ground biomass of a sugarcane crop located in the southeastern region of Brazil.