Crop Modeling: Nostalgia about Present or Reminiscence about Future

During the last two decades, computer simulation models have become powerful tools for investigating agricultural crop dynamics and solving practical problems. Many models have been developed in various countries, which permits exploration of the influence of weather conditions and agricultural strategies on the fate of a crop. However, some fundamental problems related to the description of agricultural plant growth and development remain unsolved. These primarily concern the totality of biological processes such as ontogenetic development and morphogenesis due partly to the lack of knowledge in plant physiology and the absence of realistic ideas about the origin of plant life. These circumstances have forced modelers to use quite sophisticated heuristic approaches rather than biologically sound descriptions. This paper represents the authors’ vision of this situation.