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International audienceWheat production in Morocco is crucial for economy and food security. However, wheat production is difficult because the semi-arid climate causes very variable wheat yields. To solve this issue, we need better prediction of the impact of drought on wheat yields to adapt cropping management to the semi-arid climate. Here, we adapted the models WOFOST and CropSyst to agro-climatic conditions in Morocco. Six soft and durum wheat varieties were grown during the 2011–2012 and 2012–2013 growing seasons in the experimental sites of Sidi El Aydi, Khemis Zemamra and Marchouch. Drip irrigation and rainfed treatments were arranged in a randomised-block design with three replicates. We determined the phenological stages of emergence, tillering, stem elongation, flowering and maturity. We measured aboveground biomass six times along the season. These data were used to adapt WOFOST and CropSyst to local conditions. Our results show that both models achieved good estimations, with R2 always higher than 0.91, and positive values for Nash and Sutcliffe modelling efficiencies. Results of spatially distributed simulations were then analysed for the whole country in terms of different response to drought

The paper summarizes the preliminary results from the analysis of data collected during the 2008 and 2009 vegetative seasons in a northern Italy vineyard (Vitis vinifera L., Barbera variety) and the simulations carried out in the same period with the land surface model UTOPIA. The aim of the work is to study the influence of the meteorological factors on the plant conditions. We collected a set of standard and advanced meteorological, physiological and physical data and we investigated the performance of UTOPIA in describing the different components of the energy and hydrological processes (in particular the evapotranspiration), with a special focus on the vegetation and soil. The comparison between observed data and UTOPIA simulations showed satisfactory results for the soil variables (RRMSE ranging between 15% and 40%, and correlation coefficients of 0.9). Net radiation and sensible heat fluxes RRMSE (30% and 63% respectively) suggest that both Water 2010, 2 917 the calibration of the vegetation parameters (including the influence of the grass among vine rows) and the availability of more specific measurements are very important.