SimET: An open-source tool for estimating crop evapotranspiration and soil water balance for plants with multiple growth cycles

Accurate estimation of crop evapotranspiration (ETc) and soil water balance, which is vital for optimizing water management strategy in crop production, can be performed by simulation. But existing software has many deficiencies, including complex operation, limited scalability, lack of batch processing, and a single ETc model. Here we present simET, an open-source software package written in the R programming language. Many concepts involved in crop ETc simulation are condensed into functions in the pack-age. It includes three widely used crop ETc models built on these functions: the single-crop coefficient, double-crop coefficient, and Shuttleworth-Wallace models, along with tools for preparing model data and comparing estimates. SimET supports ETc simulation in crops with repeated growth cycles such as alfalfa, a perennial forage crop that is cut multiple times annually.(c) 2023 Crop Science Society of China and Institute of Crop Science, CAAS. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of KeAi Communications Co., Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

Automated summary

This article presents an open-source software package called simET, which aims to accurately estimate crop evapotranspiration (ETc) and soil water balance. The package includes various functions and models for different crops.