Investigation of Plant Height, Fresh Weight and Dry Weight of Sorghum with Some Nonlinear Mathematical Growth Models

Abstract

The sorghum plant, which is one of the most important plants of the world, was used as material. It was grown in Konya province of Türkiye, which has semi-arid climate conditions. Plant height, fresh weight and dry weight were determined for 11 weeks during the vegetation period. Some growth models were used and the parameters of the models were tried to be defined. The coefficient of determination (R2), Pseudo R2, Mean Squares of Error (MSE) and Akaike Information Criteria (AIC) statistics were taken into account in comparing the performances of the models. It was concluded that the most suitable model was the Gompertz model for plant height, the Von Bertalanffy model for wet weight, and the Log-Logistic model for dry weight. The R2, Pseudo R2, MSE and AIC values of the Gompertz model found suitable for plant height were found to be 0.998, 0.999, 23.162 and 21.013 respectively. The R2, Pseudo R2, MSE, and AIC values of the Von Bertalanffy model, which was found suitable for wet weight estimation, were obtained as 0.995, 0.998, 1817.141 and 41.993 respectively. The R2, Pseudo R2, MSE, and AIC values of the Log-logistic model, which were found suitable for estimating the dry weight of the plant, were calculated as 0.998, 0.9993, 51.007 and 24.784 respectively. It can be suggested that nonlinear mathematical growth models are useful methods in terms of describing important plant characteristics such as plant height, fresh and dry weight, calculating maximum plant height and weight and determining the average growth rate.