Ecocrop was a

database In computing, a database is an organized collection of data or a type of data store based on the use of a database management system (DBMS), the software that interacts with end users, applications, and the database itself to capture and a ...

used to determine the suitability of a

crop A crop is a plant that can be grown and harvested extensively for profit or subsistence. In other words, a crop is a plant or plant product that is grown for a specific purpose such as food, Fiber, fibre, or fuel. When plants of the same spe ...

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) is a specialized agency of the United Nations that leads international efforts to defeat hunger and improve nutrition and food security. Its Latin motto, , translates t ...

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

plant Plants are the eukaryotes that form the Kingdom (biology), kingdom Plantae; they are predominantly Photosynthesis, photosynthetic. This means that they obtain their energy from sunlight, using chloroplasts derived from endosymbiosis with c ...

s 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, Information Processing and Management, store, and information distribution, distribute information. From a sociotechnical perspective, info ...

contributing to a

Land Use Planning Land use planning or ''Land-use regulation'' is the process of regulating the Land use, 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 resource u ...

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 fro ...

. 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 quantitatively expresses the attribute of hotness or coldness. Temperature is measurement, measured with a thermometer. It reflects the average kinetic energy of the vibrating and colliding atoms making ...

precipitation In meteorology, precipitation is any product of the condensation of atmospheric water vapor that falls from clouds due to gravitational pull. The main forms of precipitation include drizzle, rain, rain and snow mixed ("sleet" in Commonwe ...

, light intensity,

Köppen climate classification The Köppen climate classification divides Earth climates into five main climate groups, with each group being divided based on patterns of seasonal precipitation and temperature. The five main groups are ''A'' (tropical), ''B'' (arid), ''C'' (te ...

photoperiodism Photoperiod is the change of day length around the seasons. The rotation of the earth around its axis produces 24 hour changes in light (day) and dark (night) cycles on earth. The length of the light and dark in each phase varies across the season ...

latitude In geography, latitude is a geographic coordinate system, geographic 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 t ...

altitude Altitude is a distance measurement, usually in the vertical or "up" direction, between a reference datum (geodesy), datum and a point or object. The exact definition and reference datum varies according to the context (e.g., aviation, geometr ...

, 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 adversely affects the structure or function of all or part of an organism and is not immediately due to any external injury. Diseases are often known to be medical conditions that are asso ...

. 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

rain Rain is a form of precipitation where water drop (liquid), droplets that have condensation, condensed from Water vapor#In Earth's atmosphere, atmospheric water vapor fall under gravity. Rain is a major component of the water cycle and is res ...

fall 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