Garden with Insight v1.0 Help: EPIC Model documentation

JARGON ALERT! This section of the help system is largely taken from scientific documents that describe models on which the Garden with Insight models are based. For a somewhat simpler explanation, see our model explanation section. Most of this section is in scientific language, and may be difficult to understand if you are not already familiar with soil science and plant growth. But take a look around -- it won't bite!

If you need explanations for the many scientific terms used here, see our model glossary, or try consulting a soil science or plant growth textbook. Our favorite soil science references are The Nature and Properties of Soils by Brady (1990), and Soils and Soil Fertility by Troeh and Thompson (1993). Our favorite plant growth references are Botany for Gardeners by Capon (1990), and Physiology of Crop Plants by Gardner et al (1985) . See our bibliography list for details.

The Garden with Insight program models are derived largely from the EPIC (Erosion-Productivity Impact Calculator) model developed by the USDA Agricultural Research Service (Williams 1994). Smaller sections are derived from ALMANAC (Kiniry et al. 1992), SPUR (Wight et al. 1987), SOYGRO (Jones et al. 1991), CERES-Maize (Jones & Kiniry 1986), and other models. This detailed model documentation section is based largely on selections from a publication by the main author of EPIC (Williams 1994). To that document we (Paul Fernhout and Cynthia Kurtz, the makers of Garden with Insight) have added some of our own comments. We have also included sections describing in detail some non-EPIC sections of the Garden with Insight model at the end of the list below.

IMPORTANT: Please contact us directly (support@gardenwithinsight.com) if you have questions about this document or the program's models. Please do not contact the USDA Agricultural Research Service about the Garden with Insight garden simulator.

See the note about the differences between EPIC and the Garden with Insight models.

The major sections of the EPIC model are:

Introduction
Weather
Hydrology
Erosion
Nitrogen
Phosphorus
Soil Temperature
Plant Growth
Tillage
Auto Operations

Two sections describing enhancements to EPIC in the Garden with Insight model code are:

Flowering and fruiting submodel
Biomass partitioning submodel

References cited