GreenScilab-Crop, an open source software for plant simulation and parameter estimation

GreenLab is a mathematical model simulating the dynamics of plant organogenesis, biomass production and allocation, and plant three-dimensional structure. Being a functional-structural model, its software implementation and test are costly. On the other hand, software is a necessary tool to understand, analyze and apply the model. With increasing scientific publications on GreenLab, need for a freely-accessible software increased in the community of plant modeling. Implementation of GreenLab has been done in Scilab, named GreenScilab, which simulates generic plant structures from trees to crops. In this paper, a new version of GreenScilab dedicated to herbaceous plants, called GreenScilab-Crop, is presented. It allows flexible control on plants, especially the position-dependent organ growth delay. A case study is made on tomato plant for simulation and parameter identification.