Soil information is a vital input for crop models applications in various large area studies including climate change impact and food security. One of the global soil databases that provide full information for crop models is HC27 of IFPRI. The quality of the database has not been assessed for crop modeling so far. A tested crop simulation model (SSM-iCrop2) was used for this purpose that needs soil water related properties (i.e., depth, albedo, curve number for runoff, drainage coefficient, and soil water limits at saturation, drained upper limit and lower limit) for the simulation of crop properties. Actual data of two soil profiles from three different climate zones (locations) were used as model inputs to simulate potential yield, evapotranspiration (under rainfed conditions) or net irrigation water requirement (under irrigated conditions) of some important plant species (alfalfa, sugar beet, sugar cane, wheat, olive, soybean, apricot and chickpea) under rainfed and irrigated conditions of Iran. Results showed that the application of HC27 soil information in the SSM-iCrop2 model resulted in model output that was not different from the model output with actual soil information with respect to mean, variance, and distribution. No statistically significant difference was found in the simulation of various combinations of soil profiles-plant species-locations. It was concluded that HC27 information can be used in simulation studies with SSM-iCrop2 or other similar simple models for the simulation of potential yield, net irrigation water, or evapotranspiration that are commonly required for food security and climate change studies.

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评估 HC27 土壤数据库以模拟植物生产

土壤信息是各种大面积研究（包括气候变化影响和粮食安全）中作物模型应用的重要输入。为作物模型提供完整信息的全球土壤数据库之一是 IFPRI 的 HC27。迄今为止，尚未对数据库的质量进行作物建模评估。为此使用了经过测试的作物模拟模型 (SSM-iCrop2)，该模型需要土壤水分相关特性（即深度、反照率、径流曲线数、排水系数、饱和土壤水分极限、排水上限和下限）用于模拟作物特性。来自三个不同气候区（位置）的两个土壤剖面的实际数据被用作模型输入来模拟潜在产量，伊朗雨养和灌溉条件下一些重要植物物种（苜蓿、甜菜、甘蔗、小麦、橄榄、大豆、杏和鹰嘴豆）的蒸散量（在雨养条件下）或净灌溉需水量（在灌溉条件下）。结果表明，在 SSM-iCrop2 模型中应用 HC27 土壤信息导致模型输出与具有实际土壤信息的模型输出在均值、方差和分布方面没有区别。在模拟土壤剖面-植物物种-位置的各种组合中没有发现统计学上的显着差异。得出的结论是，HC27 信息可用于 SSM-iCrop2 或其他类似简单模型的模拟研究，以模拟潜在产量、净灌溉水、