Summary:

Crop Plant Functional Types in CLM5

The Community Land Model (CLM5) separates the vegetated land unit into a naturally vegetated land unit and a managed crop land unit. The managed crop land unit contains crop functional types (CFTs) that do not share soil columns, allowing for differences in land management between crops.

CLM5 includes ten actively managed crop types: temperate soybean, tropical soybean, temperate corn, tropical corn, spring wheat, cotton, rice, sugarcane, miscanthus, and switchgrass. These are chosen based on the availability of corresponding algorithms and observations. The representations of sugarcane, rice, cotton, tropical corn, and tropical soy were new in CLM5, while miscanthus and switchgrass were added after the CLM5 release.

In addition, CLM's default list of plant functional types (PFTs) includes an irrigated and unirrigated unmanaged C3 crop treated as a second C3 grass, as well as twenty-one inactive crop PFTs that do not yet have associated parameters required for active management. The inactive crop types are simulated using the parameters of the spatially closest associated crop type that is most similar in functional type.

The table provided details the specific crop PFTs included in CLM5, including their management class and the crop parameters used for each type.