Explore strategies for integrating data and biogeochemical models in this 11-minute conference talk presented by Felix Cremer, Lazaro Alonso, and Nuno Carvalhais at JuliaCon 2024. Discover the Sindbad.jl framework for modeling ecosystem dynamics of vegetation, water, and carbon cycles. Learn how automatic differentiation and deep learning approaches are applied to simulate targeted observations through physics-based models while using feedforward neural networks to learn spatial variability of parameters. Examine the effectiveness of a hybrid approach in predicting model parameters compared to site-level optimized parameters. Gain insights into the potential of incorporating neural networks into physics-based models to leverage Earth observations on a larger scale. Delve into technical challenges and solutions, including handling mutation and automatic differentiation, scaling up forward runs with YAXArrays.jl, and creating user-friendly documentation for complex systems.