Ecocrop was a

database In computing, a database is an organized collection of data stored and accessed electronically. Small databases can be stored on a file system, while large databases are hosted on computer clusters or cloud storage. The design of databases ...

used to determine the suitability of a

crop A crop is a plant that can be grown and harvested extensively for profit or subsistence. When the plants of the same kind are cultivated at one place on a large scale, it is called a crop. Most crops are cultivated in agriculture or hydropon ...

for a specified environment. Developed by the

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)french: link=no, Organisation des Nations unies pour l'alimentation et l'agriculture; it, Organizzazione delle Nazioni Unite per l'Alimentazione e l'Agricoltura is an intern ...

(FAO) it provided information predicting crop viability in different locations and climatic conditions. It also served as a catalog of

plants Plants are predominantly photosynthetic eukaryotes of the kingdom Plantae. Historically, the plant kingdom encompassed all living things that were not animals, and included algae and fungi; however, all current definitions of Plantae exclude ...

and plant growth characteristics.

History

Ecocrop first emerged in 1991 after planning and initial expert consultancies were completed concerning the development of a database. This system was developed by the Land and Water Development Division of FAO (AGLL) and was launched in 1992. The goal was to create a tool that can identify plant species for given environments and uses, and as an

information system An information system (IS) is a formal, sociotechnical, organizational system designed to collect, process, store, and distribute information. From a sociotechnical perspective, information systems are composed by four components: task, people ...

contributing to a

Land Use Planning Land use planning is the process of regulating the use of land by a central authority. Usually, this is done to promote more desirable social and environmental outcomes as well as a more efficient use of resources. More specifically, the goals ...

concept. In 1994, the Ecocrop database already permitted the identification of more than 1,700 crops and 12-20 environment requirements covering all of the agro-ecological settings of the world. Succeeding iterations of the database from 1998 to 1999 mainly involved improvements to the

user interface In the industrial design field of human–computer interaction, a user interface (UI) is the space where interactions between humans and machines occur. The goal of this interaction is to allow effective operation and control of the machine f ...

. By 2000, the database included 2,000 species and 10 additional descriptors. This number was later expanded with the addition of 300 crop species.

The Ecocrop model

The Ecocrop model determines a crop's suitability to a location by evaluating different variables. Specifically, the plant descriptors include category, life form, growth habit, and life span while environmental descriptors include

temperature Temperature is a physical quantity that expresses quantitatively the perceptions of hotness and coldness. Temperature is measured with a thermometer. Thermometers are calibrated in various temperature scales that historically have relied o ...

precipitation In meteorology, precipitation is any product of the condensation of atmospheric water vapor that falls under gravitational pull from clouds. The main forms of precipitation include drizzle, rain, sleet, snow, ice pellets, graupel and hail. ...

, light intensity,

Köppen climate classification The Köppen climate classification is one of the most widely used climate classification systems. It was first published by German-Russian climatologist Wladimir Köppen (1846–1940) in 1884, with several later modifications by Köppen, nota ...

photoperiodism Photoperiodism is the physiological reaction of organisms to the length of night or a dark period. It occurs in plants and animals. Plant photoperiodism can also be defined as the developmental responses of plants to the relative lengths of light a ...

latitude In geography, latitude is a coordinate that specifies the north– south position of a point on the surface of the Earth or another celestial body. Latitude is given as an angle that ranges from –90° at the south pole to 90° at the north ...

altitude Altitude or height (also sometimes known as depth) is a distance measurement, usually in the vertical or "up" direction, between a reference datum and a point or object. The exact definition and reference datum varies according to the context ...

, and other soil characteristics. The crop database is particularly useful if there is no alternative but to use environmental ranges. Once these inputs are determined, the system produces a suitability index as a percentage. The suitability index score is generated from 0 to 1 with the former indicating totally unsuitable while the latter indicates optimal or excellent suitability. The output also include separated suitability values for temperature and precipitation. As a prediction model, the Ecocrop algorithm yields data that are more generic than those produced by other models such as DOMAIN and BIOCLIM. The information is generic with respect to the nature of the requirements and is attributed to the lack of information concerning specific crops. Another limitation is that the results depend solely on bioclimatic factors and discounts other variables such as soil requirements,

pests PESTS was an anonymous American activist group formed in 1986 to critique racism, tokenism, and exclusion in the art world. PESTS produced newsletters, posters, and other print material highlighting examples of discrimination in gallery represent ...

, and

diseases A disease is a particular abnormal condition that negatively affects the structure or function of all or part of an organism, and that is not immediately due to any external injury. Diseases are often known to be medical conditions that a ...

. Ecocrop evaluates whether climatic conditions are adequate within a growing season for temperature and precipitation every month. It involves the calculation of climatic suitability based on

rainfall Rain is water droplets that have condensed from atmospheric water vapor and then fall under gravity. Rain is a major component of the water cycle and is responsible for depositing most of the fresh water on the Earth. It provides water f ...

and temperature marginal and optimal ranges.

Other uses

Aside from serving as a plant identifier, Ecocrop is also used for other purposes. For instance, it can assess the influence of future climate change on crop suitability. It can also be used to project crop yields using the database's information on optimal and absolute crop growing conditions (minimum temperature, maximum temperature, precipitation values, values that define temperature and precipitation extremes).

References

External links

* {{Official website Crop protection Biodiversity databases Online botany databases Plant taxonomy Food and Drug Administration