What’s new in PCSE 5.3

PCSE 5.3 has the following new features:

  • The WOFOST crop parameters have been reorganized into a new data structure and file format (e.g. YAML) and are available from github. PCSE 5.3 provides the YAMLCropDataProvider to read the new parameters files. The YAMLCropDataProvider works together with the AgroManager for specifying parameter sets for crop rotations.
  • A new CGMSEngine that mimics the behaviour of the classic CGMS. This means the engine can be run up till a specified date. When maturity or harvest is reached, the value of all state variables will be retained and kept constant until the specified date is reached.
  • Caching was added to the CGMS weather data providers, this is particularly useful for repeated runs as the weather data only have to be retrieved once from the CGMS database.

Some bugs have been fixed:

  • The NASA POWER database moved from http:// to https:// so an update of the NASAPowerWeatherDataProvider was needed.
  • When running crop rotations it was found that python did not garbage collect the crop simulation objects quick enough. This is now fixed with an explicit call to the garbage collector.

What’s new in PCSE 5.2

PCSE version 5.2 brings the following new features:

  • The LINTUL3 model has been implemented in PCSE. LINTUL3 is a simple crop growth model for simulating growth conditions under water-limited and nitrogen-limited conditions.
  • A new module for N/P/K limitations in WOFOST was implemented allowing to simulate the impact of N/P/K limitations on crop growth in WOFOST.
  • A new AgroManager which greatly enhances the way that AgroManagement can be handled in PCSE. The new agromanager can elegantly combine cropping calendars, timed events and state events also within rotations over several cropping campaigns. The AgroManager uses a new format based on YAML to store agromanagement definitions.
  • The water-limited production simulation with WOFOST now supports irrigation using the new AgroManager. An example notebook has been added to explain the different irrigation options.
  • Support for reading input data from a CGMS8 and CGMS14 database

Changes in 5.2.5:

  • Bug fixes in agromanager causing problems with crop_end_type=”earliest” or “harvest”
  • Caching was added to the CGMS weather data providers
  • Added CGMSEngine that mimics behaviour of the classic CGMS: after the cropping season is over, a call to _run() will increase the DAY, but the internal state variables do not change anymore, although they are kept available and can be queried and stored in OUTPUT.

What’s new in PCSE 5.1

PCSE version 5.1 brings the following new features:

  • Support for reading input data (weather, soil, crop parameters) from a CGMS12 database. CGMS is the acronym for Crop Growth Monitoring System and was developed by Alterra in cooperation with the MARS unit of the Joint Research Centre for crop monitoring and yield forecasting in Europe. It uses a database structure for storing weather data and model simulation results which can be read by PCSE. See the MARSwiki for the database definition.
  • The ExcelWeatherDataProvider: Before PCSE 5.2 the only file-based format for weather data was the CABO weather format read by the CABOWeatherDataProvider. Althought the format is well documented, creating CABO weather files is a bit cumbersome as for each year a new file has to be created and mistakes are easily made. Therefore, the ExcelWeatherDataProvider was created that reads its input from a Microsoft Excel file. See here for an example of an Excel weather file: downloads/nl1.xlsx.