Reliability of Genotype-Specific Parameter Estimation for Crop Models: Insights from a Markov Chain Monte-Carlo Estimation Approach

Parameter estimation is a critical step in successful application of dynamic crop models to simulate crop growth and yield under various climatic and management scenarios. Although inverse modeling parameterization techniques significantly improve the predictive capabilities of models, whether these approaches can recover the true parameter values of a specific genotype or cultivar is seldom investigated. In this study, we applied a Markov Chain Monte-Carlo (MCMC) method to the DSSAT dry bean model to estimate (recover) the genotype-specific parameters (GSPs) of 150 synthetic recombinant inbred lines (RILs) of dry bean. The synthetic parents of the population were assigned contrasting GSP values obtained from a database, and each of these GSPs was associated with several quantitative trait loci. A standard inverse modeling approach that simultaneously estimated all GSPs generated a set of values that could reproduce the original synthetic observations, but many of the estimated GSP values significantly differed from the original values. However, when parameter estimation was carried out sequentially in a stepwise manner, according to the genetically controlled plant development process, most of the estimated parameters had values similar to the original values. Developmental parameters were more accurately estimated than those related to dry mass accumulation. This new approach appears to reduce the problem of equifinality in parameter estimation, and it is especially relevant if attempts are made to relate parameter values to individual genes. Keywords: Crop models, Equifinality, Genotype-specific parameters, Markov chain Monte-Carlo, Parameterization.