Modelling soil organic carbon 1. Performance of APSIM crop and pasture modules against long-term experimental data

Abstract

We used the APSIM model to explore the ability to simulate soil organic carbon (SOC) from three long term agricultural experiments (LTAE) over 24-44years in eastern Australia (Hamilton Victoria, Wagga Wagga New South Wales and Warwick Queensland). The model was initialized for each location soil type using a 20-year spin-up period to reach stable SOC fractions. The model was not tuned to any of the data at each site. The cropping systems model simulated reasonably well the calculated changes in SOC over the 24-44-year period at the three different sites under various agronomic management practices. At Hamilton calculated SOC did not change significantly over 32years and the APSIM-Agpasture m..