Modeling of environmental conditions related to rapeseed cultivation

The impacts of a crop production on the environment, local or global, present a wide range of diversity. This characteristic requires a global evaluation tool in ol der to optimise the whale chain or to avoid pollution transfer between medium lair, sail, water table...), or between economic actors (agriculture, industry...). Life cycle analysis (LCA) is one on these tools. The application of LCA to agriculture requires a reliable and representative quantification of the direct emissions on the field to water table (nitrates...), or to the atmosphere (CO(2), nitrous oxide, ammonia...). For a given crop production system, a given location, these direct emissions depend largely from the fluctuating conditions of the climate and particularly rainfall. A reliable and representative quantification of the direct emissions can be obtained through a modelling approach. Research activities aim to set up a model of direct emissions on the field; limited in a first step to nitrogen compounds. A CERES type model has been used, the different submodules have been calibrated from a long term experiment (a rape seed crop and its intercrop) on an experimental sire in Champagne-Ardennes (NE France).