A site-specific crop modeling system for enhancing management practices in Honduras

Agriculture plays an important role in Honduras economy, contributing nearly 12% of the national GDP and serving as a primary source of livelihoods, particularly in rural areas (Keller, 2013). Despite its importance, the sector is highly vulnerable to climatic variability and extreme weather events. Smallholders are especially at risk due to limited adaptive capacity, scarce resources, and restricted access to essential information (Jansen et al., 2006). These limitations increase their susceptibility to yield losses. Addressing such challenges requires decision-support tools that provide site-specific information to guide agricultural management planning. Although similar tools have proven their impact in other regions (Sotelo et al., 2020), Honduras currently lacks a crop modeling system capable of delivering locally tailored recommendations.
We propose “Suelos de Honduras: Site-specific crop modeling”, a tool system designed to generate site-specific recommendations for five crops at the village level. The system integrates process-based crop growth models with historical climate, soil, and agronomic data to guide optimal planting dates and nitrogen fertilization strategies, thereby improving management practices with locally relevant information.