The plant is treated as a kind of biological factory, which processes light, carbon dioxide, water, and nutrients into harvestable parts.
Main parameters kept into consideration are temperature, sunlight, standing crop biomass, plant production distribution, nutrient and water supply.
[1] Important parameters in theoretical production models thus are: Theoretical production ecology assumes that the growth of common agricultural crops, such as cereals and tubers, usually consists of four (or five) phases: Plant production models exist in varying levels of scope (cell, physiological, individual plant, crop, geographical region, global) and of generality: the model can be crop-specific or be more generally applicable.
In this section the emphasis will be on crop-level based models as the crop is the main area of interest from an agronomical point of view.
The ORYZA2000 rice growth model has been developed at the IRRI in cooperation with Wageningen University.
This model simulates light interception and growth of individual plants based on the lateral expansion of their crown zone areas.