Crop model interface

[vers-w]

Hi,
From my side, I come from the agricultural modelling domain, where crop modules have long lacked interaction with broader hydrological processes — for example, whether surrounding water resources (groundwater, lakes, irrigation canals) can actually meet the crop’s water demand. Wflow provides an interesting opportunity here.

I also noticed that in the previous Python version there used to be a crop-related module. Would it be possible to provide an interface for “crop” so that relevant scientists can more easily couple Wflow with existing crop models? This could open up possibilities for integrated agricultural–hydrological modelling and better representation of water–crop interactions.

Originally posted by @xiangyi-wang in #342 (comment)

[vers-w]

Thanks for starting this interesting discussion @xiangyi-wang. I have moved it to a separate topic as the other discussion is about the support of different hydrological concepts in v1.0.

I think an interface for a crop model could be handled through the Basic Model Interface. We have some experience with this by coupling the previous Python version with the crop model WOFOST, with exchanges of (potential) transpiration from wflow and leaf area index and rooting depth from WOFOST each timestep. The other option is to support a (simple) crop model in Wflow.jl. The previous Python version supports indeed a crop-related module, based on LINTUL, for rice production.

[xiangyi-wang]

Thank you for your reply. I'm researching Basic Model Interface, and this might be what I'm looking for.