Release Notes

 

DSSAT v4.8.6.0

Version 4.8.6.0, Release date 2026-07-01

  • Updated Tools
    • The DSSAT Shell has been updated with all APPs for tools and utilties now visible from the main screen
    • Various older programs were removed, including ICSim, the introductory crop simulation tool; and WeatherAnalogue.
  • New Tools
    • GB2 – Replacement for GBuild for graphical visualization of crop model outcomes.
    • XB2 – Replacement for XBuild for creating crop management files (FileX); requires Java.
  • New Crop models
    • Flax – CROPGRO
    • Hemp – CROPGRO
    • Rye – CROPGRO
  • New Functionality
    • Stage-based environmental summaries in EnvSum.OUT and EnvSum.csv.
    • Cumulative precipitation output to Weather.OUT and weather CSV output files.
    • Plant nitrogen output variables for CROPGRO crops.
    • Winter cold- and drought-survival processes for perennial forage crops.
    • Support for automatic irrigation types E and T.
    • Warnings when water-table depth is specified in initial soil conditions.
    • Added water, nitrogen, carbon and mass-balance to support future model-integration developments.
  • Plant model revisions
    • CROPGRO-Flax
      • Added a new flax crop module, genotype files.
    • CROPGRO-Cotton
      • Updated cultivar, ecotype, and species files.
      • Added missing minimum and maximum values to ecotype parameters.
    • CROPGRO-Hemp
      • Updated cultivar and ecotype files to resolve cultivar-name conflicts.
    • CROPGRO-Forage
      • Added winter cold- and drought-survival responses.
      • Updated Bahia grass, Guinea grass, and alfalfa genotype files.
    • CROPGRO-Cassava
      • Added protection against division-by-zero errors.
    • CROPGRO-Bell Pepper
      • Corrected fruit dry-matter calculations.
    • CROPGRO
      • Added plant nitrogen output variables.
      • Add hemp and flax genotpye files
      • Updated alfalfa, cotton, Bahia grass and Guinea grass genotype files.
    • CSCER and CSCRP
      • Added rye genotpye files
      • Updated FileA reading and path-handling procedures.
    • CSCRP, CSCAS and CSYCA
      • Initialization revisions and updates.
  • Miscellaneous
    • Corrected the monthly temperature-amplitude calculation in WEATHR.for.
    • Corrected automatic planting inputs to prevent simulation loops caused by invalid PFRST and PLAST values.
    • Corrected the surface-soil-layer calculation used in soil nitrogen immobilization processes.
    • Updated IMMOBLIMIT logic to allow immobilization when the available value is greater than zero.
    • Added protection against divide-by-zero errors in soils shallower than 20 cm.
    • Corrected a rare soil-water balance issue.
    • Added safeguards for cold-hardening calculations.
    • Improved diagnostics for missing tillage operations.
    • Corrected reporting in Overview.OUT, including Environmental and stress factors sections.
    • Corrected SoilWat.OUT, SomLitC.csv, and SoilDyn.OUT reporting.
    • Added cumulative precipitation to weather output files.
    • Corrected fresh-harvest weight, crop-stage, and emergence-date reporting.
    • Corrected by-product weight at harvest (BWAH) in MgmtEvent.OUT.
    • Removed trailing commas from Summary.csv and EnvSum.csv.
    • Improved output formatting for Linux and MacOS platforms.
    • Removed obsolete dummy files that could generate unwanted fort.* files.
    • Updated DATA.CDE, DETAIL.CDE and related variable definitions.
    • Corrected duplicate and missing data-code definitions.
    • Updated the minimum supported CMake version.
    • Addressed Intel Fortran deprecation messages.
    • Removed compiler warnings and improved source-code maintenance.
    • Improved input handling for tab characters in weather and soil-profile files.
    • Improved error messages for forage-survival parameters and weather-file formatting.
    • Updated the atmospheric CO2 data file with a revised format.
    • Corrected initilization issue affecting Sequence simulations.
  • Experimental Data
    • Added experimental data files for six experiments for rye.
    • Added experimental data files for two experiments for flax.
    • Added experimental data files for four experiments for hemp.
    • Removed duplicate records from various weather files.
    • Updated the cultivar name in the crop management file to match the name shown in the cultivar file.
    • Updated the year in various measurement files to show either a two digit or four digit year.
    • Added example treatments for Automow for Brachiaria.
    • Corrected units for N2OEC in the measurement file for the QUKY crop rotation experiments.
    • Updated long-term weather data for Midville, Donalsonville, and Penfield (Athens), Georgia.
    • Add a four digit year to the phenological observations for wheat and barley.
    • Added example treatments for Automow for Bahia.
    • Added two new experiments from Brazil for soybean.
    • Removed “0” values for water table depth from the initial conditions section in the crop management file.
    • Removed tabs from several soil and weather files.
 

DSSAT v4.8.5.0

Version 4.8.5.0, Release date 2024-12-01

  • New Tools
    • XB2 – Replacement for XBuild for creating crop management files; developed in Java. The yield forecasting and climate change options are still under development.
    • TSE – Time Series Estimator – Tool for estimating cultivar coefficients using time series observations (Memic et al., 2021. Cultivar coefficient estimator for the cropping system model based on time-series data – a case study for soybean. https://doi.org/10.13031/trans.14432).
  • Updated Tools
    • GLUEP – Parallized version of GLUE (Ferreira et al., 2024. Enhancing crop model parameter estimation across computing environments: Utilizing the GLUE method and parallel computing for determining genetic coefficients. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compag.2024.109513).
  • New Crop Models
    • Lentil – CROPGRO (Jing et al., 2024. Simulating the development and growth of lentil using the CSM-CROPGRO model. https://doi.org/10.1002/agj2.21654).
    • Bahia – PRFRM (Smith et al., 2023. Adapting the CROPGRO Perennial Forage model to predict growth and development of Pensacola bahiagrass. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fcr.2023.109095).
    • Bambara groundnut – CROPGRO (Karunaratne et al., 2024. Adapting the CROPGRO model to simulate growth, development, and yield of Bambara groundnut (Vigna subterranea L. Verdc), an underutilized crop. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eja.2024.127279).
    • Amaranth – CROPGRO (Nkebiwe et al., 2021. Adapting the CROPGRO-faba bean model to simulate the growth and development of Amaranthus species. https://doi.org/10.1002/agj2.21090).
  • New Functionality
    • The model will read dates with a 4-digit year in FileA.
    • Output for estimated net CO2 provided in GHG.OUT and Summary.OUT files.
    • Added economic yield output in the Overview.OUT and Summary.OUT files.
    • Multiple harvests are now included as output in MgmtEvent.OUT file.
    • The Perennial Forage Model can now be used for crop rotations.
    • Update for Bahia grass using the PRFRM Model as the default crop module.
    • New daily soil output for LL, DUL, SAT, and BD for all soil layers provided in SoilWater.OUT.
  • Plant model revisions
    • SAMUCA
      • Protections for division by zero.
    • CERES-Wheat
      • Improved output format.
    • WHAPS
      • Updated read ecotype parameters format.
      • Fixed divisions by zero caused by cultivar calibration.
    • CROPSIM
      • Fixed divisions by zero caused by cultivar calibration.
    • CROPGRO-Cotton
      • Added lint yield and lint percentage as an output in Overview.OUT, Evaluate.OUT and Summary.OUT.
    • CROPGRO-Strawberry
      • Improved FreshWt.OUT outputs.
  • Miscellaneous
    • Update Taro and CERES-Wheat cultivar file variable descriptions.
    • New README.md for dssat-csm-os developers.
    • Updated soil NO3 and NH4 variables in DATA.CDE.
    • General spelling improvements in *.CUL files.
    • Added ASCE ET parameters to species files.
    • Updated GHG starting condition for methane production.
    • Updated Soil properties error checking for DUL, SAT, LL, SRGF and SSKS.
    • Added MAXIMA, MINIMA and trait (P/G/N) for ecotype coefficients for CROPGRO crops.
    • Added protection for SOILDYN Soil Organic Matter changes in DUL.
    • CMake option to allow dynamic link.
    • Include Gencalc rules and Gencalc About in the Data\Default directory
    • Updated verbose output mode for SoilTemp.OUT.
    • Added protections for Weather variables when NaN found in *.WTH file.
    • Updated encoding issues of \*.CDE files.
    • Corrected spelling of Tannier to Tanier.
  • Experimental Data
 

DSSAT v4.8.2.0

Version 4.8.2.0, Release date 2023-08-03

  • New Crop Models
    • Carinata – CROPGRO
    • Guar – CROPGRO
    • Guinea grass – FORAGE
    • Strawberry – CROPGRO
  • New Functionality
    • Soil Temperature default method switched from Ritchie equation to average daily temperature (TAVG).
    • Automatic MOW for Forage crops.
    • Multi-Harvest for CROPGRO crops.
    • N20 csv output file.
    • Added Crop status column to Summary.OUT (status of crop at end of simulation).
    • Fertigation fertilizer placed at user-specified depth.
    • Output potential root water uptake in ET.OUT.
    • Input Soil alternative electron acceptors (SAEA) in soil analysis section of FileX, default value of 26.5 mol Ceq/m3
    • Fertilizers affect buffer for methane production.
    • Added model respose to user-specified water table inputs.
    • PEST Module and MOW file now accept dates in 2- and 4-digit year format.
  • Plant model revisions
    • ALOHA
      • Rollback of PineApple model to version v4.7.5.26.
    • AROID
      • Calibrated cultivar coefficients for Taro with GLUE HPC.
    • CANEGRO
      • Removed hard-coded PORMIN.
      • Increased root length density based on literature.
      • Added plant response to soil Nitrogen.
    • CERES
      • Separated CERES main subroutine file into multiple files.
      • Fixed CERES-Maize issue with germination and emergence failure.
      • Calibrated cultivar coefficients for Barley, Wheat, Maize, Millet, Sorghum and Rice with GLUE HPC.
    • CROPGRO
      • Added time required for pod/fruit to reach harvest maturity (XMAGE) for crops that use fresh weight.
      • Added new Species parameters for Nitrogen mining, leaf growth and canopy.
      • Calibrated genetics for CROPGRO crops.
      • Updated genetics for fresh weight crops.
      • Improved handling of C and N mining for Multi-Harvest.
    • CROPSIM
      • Separated CROPSIM main subroutine file into multiple files.
      • Added protection to avoid zero division when calculating VRNSTAGE in CROPSIM model.
    • MANIHOT
      • Update genetics for Cassava.
    • NWHEAT
      • Simplified ozone equations for NWheat.
      • Removed FOZ2 and SFOZ2 parameters from NWheat Ecotype file.
    • SAMUCA
      • Fixed protections with CSM subroutines to simulate under extreme latitudes.
      • Updated Local variables description.
      • Parameter simplification phyllochron = plastochron.
      • Soil temperature effect switched-off until SoilT improvements are done.
      • Recalibration of all cultivars using air temperature.
    • SUBSTOR
      • Added protection for leaf senescence factor due to temperature (SLFT).
      • Calibrated cultivar coefficients for Potato with GLUE HPC.
  • Miscellaneous
    • Added protections for input extreme latitudes in FileX.
    • Updated and revised WARNING.OUT messages.
    • Checked for missing input codes for tillage, fertilzer, residue and chemical in FileX.
    • Reincorporated evapotranspiration parameters into the Species files.
    • Stopped model for undefined PET flag and update error checking for ASCE parameters.
    • Made ASCE ET robust for various weather file formats.
    • Removed static CMake install prefix for UNIX systems.
    • Updated start simulation date for 4-digit year to avoid stop the model.
    • Updated CO2 concentration to current August 4, 2023.
    • Reduced number of compile warnings.
    • Handled multiple fertilizers in one day correctly.
    • Removed WORK.OUT output.
    • Prevent negative NO3 and NH4 values in the FORAGE model.
    • Prevent total nitrogen uptake (TRNU) to avoid division by zero.
    • New Default directory under data for Simulation Control settings for Xbuild and XB2.
    • Weather variable definitions for Weatherman.
    • Updated error messages.
    • Updated variable definitions in DATA.CDE.
    • BatchFiles in the Data directory.
    • Updated CDE data files.
    • Replaced DATA.CDE with ASCII to UTF-8 file format.
    • Changed SweetCorn FreshWt.OUT header to match CROPGRO FreshWt.OUT header.
    • Removed unused Nitrogen Stress parameters read from plant input.
    • Cleaned up genotype files unused comments and updated files based on CROPGRO standard.
    • Added by-product harvested to MgmtEvent.OUT.
 

DSSAT v4.8.0.0

Version 4.8.0.0, Release date 2022-03-11

  • New crop models
    • CERES-Teff
    • Quinoa
    • Samuca – Sugarcane
  • Plant model revisions
    • Major revisions to YCA Cassava model.
    • Ozone effects added to NWheat model.
    • Pest damage routines coupled to NWheat model
  • Management
    • Added “F” automatic planting option (force planting on last day of window)
      Fertilizer characteristics specified in external file, FERCH048.SDA
      Model function.
 

DSSAT v4.7.5.8

Version 4.7.5.8, Release date 2019-04-18

 

DSSAT v4.7.0.0

Version 4.7.0.0, Release date 2017-08-20

 

DSSAT v4.6.0.0

Version 4.6.0.0, Release date 2014-03-26

 

DSSAT v4.5.0.0

Version 4.5.0.0, Release date 2011-11-01

 

DSSAT v4.0.0.0

Version 4.0.0.0, Release date 2004

 

DSSAT v3.5.0.0

Version 3.5.0.0, Release date 1998

 

DSSAT v3.1.0.0

Version 3.1.0.0, Release date 1996

 

DSSAT v3.0.0.0

Version 3.0.0.0, Release date 1994

 

DSSAT v2.1.0.0

Version 2.1.0.0, Release date 1989