Work package 1

WP1 uses soil-crop modelling to assess the potential yield of the chosen grain legumes in a range of conditions. The behaviour of several major species of grain legume crops can now be modelled with reasonable reliability in a wide range of cultivars, soil, climate, and management, at the single crop season or at the crop rotation level. Grain yield, protein yield, aboveground biomass and N acquisition, as well as several environmental variables (e.g., soil mineral N, water resources, and organic matter) can be simulated. The interest of such wide virtual exploration for present climate conditions and future climate scenarios has been widely tested. In this project, the STICS model will be used as the core simulation tool. It is one of the few soil-crop simulation platforms available for faba bean and soya bean as species, and progressively for an increasing number of cultivars with varying characteristics.

Taking advantage of this tool coupled to a devoted platform for agroecological modelling, one originality of the project will be to generate extensive simulation datasets for faba bean and soya bean, in a wide range of EU locations, time, cultivars and management situations. This will create a novel basis for a comprehensive analysis of the various components of the yield gap and potential avenues for its reduction at regional and EU scales.