The performances of two crop growth models, AquaCrop and CropSyst, have been compared in the simulation of durum wheat and barley grown in a Mediterranean environment (Southern Italy) for three years (2006-2008). The experimental data included three water (rainfed, 50% and full irrigation) and two nitrogen (0 and 120 kg/ha) regimes. The models have been calibrated for both crops on the data of 2007, and validated on all treatments in both 2006 and 2008. Although AquaCrop required less input information than CropSyst, both models have shown convincing performances. In general, CropSyst simulated better biomass growth during the growing season, while AquaCrop was finer in matching biomass and yield at harvesting, particularly for water deficit and rainfed conditions.
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As compared to CropSyst, AquaCrop uses a more elaborated routine module to simulate the biomass development under water stress conditions: it makes AquaCrop more suitable for arid and semi-arid Mediterranean conditions.
