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Abstract BACKGROUND The Songhua River Basin, a vital grain‐producing area in China, faces challenges due to the uneven distribution of water resources and the intensive water demands of agriculture. To enhance agricultural development and effectively manage water scarcity, it is essential to identify the water‐saving potential of major staple crops – corn, wheat, and rice. This study enhances the World Food Studies (WOFOST) model by refining the day of year for the developmental vegetative stage (DVS), thereby improving the representation of phenological stages for spring maize, spring wheat, and rice within the model. This refinement offers a detailed analysis of the potential and rainfed yields. RESULTS The results from the modified WOFOST model show promising simulation outcomes for the biomass and yield of maize, wheat, and rice, with Nash–Sutcliffe efficiency (NS) and index of agreement (IoA) values all exceeding 0.7. An analysis of photothermal potential yields ( Y p ) and rainfed yields ( Y r ) revealed minimal differences in yields for spring maize and rice across various rainfall frequencies. Specifically, the average photothermal utilization rates (LTs) are 93.57% for maize and 85.25% for rice. In contrast, the rainfed yield for wheat is lower than its photothermal yield, with an LT of 43.66%. CONCLUSIONS These findings suggest that in the Songhua River Basin, maize and rice offer greater potential for water conservation compared to wheat. It is recommended to judiciously reduce irrigation during the growing seasons of spring maize and rice to help alleviate agricultural water use pressures. © 2024 Society of Chemical Industry.
Li et al. (Fri,) studied this question.