ISHS Acta Horticulturae 672: IV International Symposium on Horticultural Education, Extension and Training
VIRTUALCARROTS: AN ONLINE TOOL FOR TEACHING YIELD × DENSITY RELATIONSHIPS |
| Authors: | B.R. MacKay, J. Reid, R. Love |
| Keywords: | horticulture education, growth model, crop simulation model |
| Abstract:
VirtualCarrots is an online tool designed to improve our students’ understanding and our teaching of yield-density relationships in field crops. With VirtualCarrots, students “grow” crops of carrots under a range of production variables (e.g. required marketable size, time of year, location, and density). VirtualCarrots generates sets of data and graphs that students evaluate and interpret based on their theoretical understanding of field crop yield-density relationships. For example, they can examine the influence of sowing density, sowing dates, and cultivar differences for prescribed market yields and harvest dates by instantly “growing” crops of carrots online. For each set of input scenarios, VirtualCarrots generates predicted yield quantity and quality data sets in a downloadable form for subsequent off-line analysis and interpretation by the students. Each student’s generated data set is saved by VirtualCarrots and a series of pre-loaded analytical routines is conducted on the data for subsequent release to the student (if permitted) or for staff to use as an aid for assessing students’ assignments. VirtualCarrots provides an easy and effective means of teaching crop yield-density relationships to our extramural (distance) students and enables students to examine a wider range of production variables that impact on the yield of field crops than if we were to grow real crops ourselves. | |
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