Chapter 20
Soybean Plant Growth
In life, a person can take one of two attitudes: to build or to
plant. The builders might take years over their tasks, but one
day, they finish what they’re doing. Then they find that they’re
hemmed in by their own walls. Life loses its meaning when the
building stops.
Then there are those who plant. They endure storms and all the
vicissitudes of the seasons, and they rarely rest. But unlike a
building, a garden never stops growing. And while it requires the
gardener’s constant attention, it also allows life for the gardener
to be a great adventure.
Gardeners always recognize each other, because they know that
in the history of each plant lies the growth of the whole World.
(Paulo Coelho)
20.1 Soybean Plant Model
While the previous chapter described the optimal behavior of an idealized plant,
here we turn to a model of a soybean plant under a set of current and potential
alternative environmental conditions. We ask and answer the following three key
questions:
• What is the seasonal biomass accumulation by a soybean plant over an average
growing season?
• How does biomass of the plant parts change over the season with different
developmental stages?
A save-disabled version of STELLA and the computer models of this book are available at
www.iseesystems.com/modelingdynamicbiologicalsystems.
B. Hannon and M. Ruth, Modeling Dynamic Biological Systems,
Modeling Dynamic Systems, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-05615-9_20,
© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014
157
Soybean Plant Growth
In life, a person can take one of two attitudes: to build or to
plant. The builders might take years over their tasks, but one
day, they finish what they’re doing. Then they find that they’re
hemmed in by their own walls. Life loses its meaning when the
building stops.
Then there are those who plant. They endure storms and all the
vicissitudes of the seasons, and they rarely rest. But unlike a
building, a garden never stops growing. And while it requires the
gardener’s constant attention, it also allows life for the gardener
to be a great adventure.
Gardeners always recognize each other, because they know that
in the history of each plant lies the growth of the whole World.
(Paulo Coelho)
20.1 Soybean Plant Model
While the previous chapter described the optimal behavior of an idealized plant,
here we turn to a model of a soybean plant under a set of current and potential
alternative environmental conditions. We ask and answer the following three key
questions:
• What is the seasonal biomass accumulation by a soybean plant over an average
growing season?
• How does biomass of the plant parts change over the season with different
developmental stages?
A save-disabled version of STELLA and the computer models of this book are available at
www.iseesystems.com/modelingdynamicbiologicalsystems.
B. Hannon and M. Ruth, Modeling Dynamic Biological Systems,
Modeling Dynamic Systems, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-05615-9_20,
© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014
157