Populus simonii Carr., one of the main poplar tree species, is cultivated widely in Northeast and Northwest China in protection and timber forests. Plant phenology plays an important role in timber production by controlling the growing period (i.e., the period between the leaf unfolding and the leaf turning yellow). It is important to understand this control mechanism and to improve the accuracy of the simulation of leaf unfolding phenology for P. simonii in order to determine accurately the timber production of P. simonii plantations. In this study, based on phenological observation data from 10 agricultural meteorological stations in Heilongjiang Province, China, model simulation was employed to determine the control mechanism of leaf unfolding of P. simonii. Furthermore, the predicting effects of nine phenology-simulating models for P. simonii leaf unfolding were evaluated and the distribution characteristics of P. simonii leaf unfolding in China in 2015 were simulated. The results show that P. simonii leaf unfolding is sensitive to air temperature;consequently, climate warming could advance the P. simonii leaf unfolding process. The phenological model based on air temperature could be better suited for simulating P. simonii leaf unfolding, with 76.7% of the calibration data of absolute error being less than three days. The performance of the models based solely on forcing requirements was found superior to that of the models incorporating chilling. If it was imperative that the chilling threshold is reached, the south of the Yunnan, Guangdong, and Guangxi provinces would be unsuitable for planting P. simonii. In this regard, the phenology model based on the chilling threshold as necessary condition was indicated a more reasonable model for the distribution characteristics of P. simonii leaf unfolding.
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