Home » Introducing Cropbox: a declarative crop modeling framework

Introducing Cropbox: a declarative crop modeling framework

Plant modelers do not also need to be software engineers thanks to Cropbox framework

You can listen to this page as an audio file.

Crop modelling frameworks streamline modelling workflows from running simulations, to output visualization and model evaluation by providing handy tools that support the development, exchange, and reuse of crop model components. Modelers can use frameworks with little overhead for detailed comprehension of the underlying programming or need to access and modify the platform.

Frameworks give crop modelers the ability to:

  • define models in a convenient way
  • test alternative hypotheses in the same model
  • exchange model components between different platforms
  • organize complex simulations under various scenarios
  • compare model output and performance

Postdoctoral researcher Kyungdahm Yun and Professor Soo-Hyung Kim, both at the University of Washington, introduce Cropbox, a declarative crop modeling framework, in a new article published in in silico Plants.

While many crop frameworks have been created, most recently,  Crop2ML, CPlantBox, and yggdrasil, Cropbox is unique in that it provides a simple domain-specific language and useful tools for supporting an entire cycle of model development. “The framework was built to support an exploratory workflow with a minimal amount of coding in an interactive development environment. We hope it allows anyone interested in modeling to do “modeling” with little need to worry about technical details.”

Specifications

  • It provides a declarative syntax resembling mathematical formulae for defining model components and variables (see figure).
  • It automatically converts and validates units of measurement.
  • It translates model specifications into Julia code. Julia is a new programming language that was designed for scientific computing and equipped with powerful packages that handle data management, unit conversion, statistics, and 3D visualization.
Concept of Cropbox modeling framework. The framework takes a model specification in
declarative domain-specific language and emits host code written in Julia programming language
after internal dependency analysis for variables and systems. Model developers then interact with
automatically generated model code via several functions provided for simulation, evaluation,
calibration, and visualization workflow.
Concept of Cropbox modeling framework.

Simulations

  • It provides a unified interface for running models and generating outputs in a standard format.
  • It supports a programmatic construction of configurations for setting parameter values.
  • It allows large scale simulations by using automatic parallel processing.

Evaluation

  • It provides common metrics for model evaluation such as RMSE (root mean square error) and Nash-Sutcliffe model efficiency, a.k.a., model efficiency (EF).
  • It supports automatic model calibration using a global optimization method.

Visualization

  • It supports various plotting options out of the box for web-based Jupyter and text-based REPL environments.
  • It allows interactive manipulation of model output via graphical user interface.
  • It can support more powerful visualization (e.g., 3D rendering) via external Julia packages.
Kyungdahm Yun gives an overview of Cropbox at JuliaCon 2022.

The authors provide three example applications where previously existing models written in C++ were reimplemented in Cropbox: a coupled C3 and C4 leaf gas-exchange model, a process-based crop model for garlic, and a 3D root architecture model. These examples demonstrate streamlined workflows and less code using Cropbox.

Yun concludes “We anticipate that Cropbox will become a versatile toolbox for crop modelers to build, improve, and apply crop models in ways that have yet to be seen. We also hope that Cropbox will become an agent that blurs the lines between model users and model developers, with fewer technical hurdles.”

READ THE ARTICLE:

Kyungdahm Yun, Soo-Hyung Kim, Cropbox: a declarative crop modeling framework, in silico Plants, Volume 5, Issue 1, 2023, https://doi.org/10.1093/insilicoplants/diac021


The open-source framework, Cropbox, is freely available at https://github.com/cropbox/Cropbox.jl. There, readers can also find additional examples of use.

Rachel Shekar

Rachel (she/her) is a Founding and Managing Editor of in silico Plants. She has a Master’s Degree in Plant Biology from the University of Illinois. She has over 15 years of academic journal editorial experience, including the founding of GCB Bioenergy and the management of Global Change Biology. Rachel has overseen the social media development that has been a major part of promotion of both journals.

Read this in your language

The Week in Botany

On Monday mornings we send out a newsletter of the links that have been catching the attention of our readers on Twitter and beyond. You can sign up to receive it below.

@BotanyOne on Mastodon

Loading Mastodon feed...

Audio


Archive