This study was carried out with the purpose of calibranting the ORYZA-APSIM crop model and evaluating its performance to simulate the development, growth and yield of upland rice variety BRS-Primavera in the production area of upland rice in Brazil. Acording to the following variables: the effective heat daily units (HU); the rates of phenological development at each stage (DVR); the fractions of the dry matter of leaves (DMf), stems, storage organs (panicle) (DMp) and parameters to define the specific leaf area (SLA) during the crop cycle. For the evaluation, it was compared the values simulated and observed for phenological development (number of days from emergence to flowering) and for growth (total dry matter of shoot (DMt), dry matter of green leaves (DMf), leaf area index (LAI)) and yield (P). The model showed a satisfactory performance to simulate the phenological development for regions near the local calibration. For latitude near equator, Teresina-PI, the phenological simulation was poor. The simulated growth for leaf area index (LAI) differed from observed, but the simulated total dry matter was similar to observed in the first experiment and not so good in the second experiment. One of the reasons is that the model overestimates the effects of water stress during the experiment. However, the ORYZA-APSIM presented good performance in simulation of the order of productivity at the 5% level of significance.
Rice; Oryza sativa; Calibration; Phenology
