Daisy 5.19

A soil plant atmosphere system model

Daisy is an interesting piece of software that includes a mechanistic simulation model of the physical and biological processes in an agricultural field. It traces the fate of water, energy, carbon, nitrogen, and pesticides, both above and below ground. The application is able to predict production, environmental impact in the form of leaching, and change in soil (carbon) quality over time. Another common use is as an upper boundary for a groundwater model.

The input to Daisy is daily or hourly weather data, management information (sow/harvest, tillage operations, as well as data and amounts of irrigation, fertilizer and pesticide applications), and finally soil quality (texture, humus content).

The timescale go from hourly fluxes to changes in soil carbon pools over centuries.