EVK2-1999-00187 PROMISE

Half-yearly report on the activities of University of Reading, Agriculture (UREADAG)

WP5000

Deliverable 5003.  Establish an international network of scientists concerned with the impacts of monsoon climates on cropping systems of Africa and India

No further activities since the last half-yearly report.  An invitation has been accepted for Drs Challinor and Wheeler to present some of the work from the PROMISE project at the CGIAR Challenge Programme on Climate Change in Nairobi, Kenya, January 2002.

WP3100

Deliverable 3102. Progress towards the development of an integrated system which applies probabilistic methods for the interpretation of seasonal forecasts in terms of crop development and yields, as well as recommendations to farmers

In the last six months, the development of the combined seasonal weather/ crop forecasting systems has advanced further.  The overall structure of the model system has been decided upon (Figure 1).  This includes spatial representation of soils,  mathematical distributions that capture the uncertainties in the crop model, and a novel method of deriving the patterns of actual crop yields from those of potential (model output) yields. The representation of soil parameters for input into the HAPPY model was aided by a visit to scientists at the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Wallingford, UK. The form of the combined model system was presented at the Summer Colloquium on the Physics of Weather and Climate: Land – Atmosphere interactions in Trieste, Italy. The format and parameters for the central crop model (HAPPY, Huge Area Potential Peanut Yield model) have been finalised and computer coding is underway.