3: Plant Models to decipher plant-plant interactions

·         This symposium encompasses various types of mechanistic models, ranging from detailed functional structural plant models representing individual plant organs to "big leaf" crop models, and operating at different scales, from a field extract comprising a small number of plants to a complete field or even a landscape, and from a single plant cycle to the rotation scale.

• The presentations may address various challenges. For example:
• How to integrate plant-plant interactions (especially competition for multiple resources)?
• How to integrate biotic and abiotic interactions?
• How to integrate plant biodiversity (intra- and interspecific)?
• How to include landscape effects, how to upscale from field to landscape etc
• How can models be used to explore possibilities beyond the scope of real experimentation in order
• to identify ideal combinations of plant traits (i.e. identify breeding targets)
• to identify ideal combinations of cropping practices (i.e., rules for designing agroecological cropping systems)
• to produce emergent knowledge on plant–plant interactions (e.g., which interactions are the most influential in which conditions)
• Can we develop hybrid modelling approaches that go beyond the dichotomy of detailed plant description (e.g. as in FSPM) vs. representation of the long-term effects of cropping techniques (e.g. as in crop models), combining the benefits of both types of models? 
• How to integrate a panel of ecosystem services?
• How to integrate different types of organisms (beneficial or pest): plants, microorganisms, insects, etc?