Use of the Gompertz Function for Predicting Corn Leaf Area

Abstract

ABSTRACT ATECHNIQUE was developed to relate the coefficients A, B, and k of the Gompertz function (typical growth function) to environmental factors. Environmental factors consid-ered were maximum and minimum temperatures, rainfall, percent sun-shine, and wind speed. This procedure used regression analysis to relate the coefficients to en-vironmental factors. In this manner each day's growth reflected the en-vironment of that day. Corn leaf area was used to test the procedure. It was found that the coef-ficients were physiologically signifi-cant with respect to the environment. This is contrary to other reports. Re-sults of this procedure show that ac-ceptable estimates of leaf growth throughout the season were achieved. Using daily environmental conditions from weather bureau records, a maxi-mum leaf area of 6500 cm2 was pre-dicted as compared to actual field test measurements of 6200 cm2. This maximum was reached approximately 90 days after planting for both pre-dicted and measured growth curves.