Development of an Object-Oriented Version of TOMGRO for a Web-based Decision Support System

The advantages of object-oriented programming for crop modeling are discussed. Contrarily to procedural languages such as Fortran77, object oriented programming yields a code that is intrinsically modular and whose architecture is close to that of the actual crop. This simplifies model merging and code re-use, which in turn tends to extend the model life-span and increases its chances of being adopted outside the research community. The tomato model TOMGRO is used as a case study and a new version of this model in C# is outlined. One of the advantages of C# is that it is fully integrated in the .Net framework and offers developers a powerful class library. Moreover, the inclusion of such a model in a web-based decision support system using Web services and ASP.NET would be straightforward.