Dear Dr. Yang and others:

On page 15 and the examples on page 30 of DSSAT version 3 volume 2 Start of
simulation is defined as a critical input to be able to run the crop model
and has to be defined.  In your case you also need to define the Initial
Conditions sections and ICDAT, the date that your initial conditions were
measured.  If you set the Start to I, the model will check if ICDAT < SDATE
and will use the smallest of the two numbers.

Regards,

Gerrit Hoogenboom


At 08:19 AM 2/6/02 -0500, Jinzhong Yang wrote:
>Dear members,
>
>I am using DSSAT35 for simulating the rainfed growth of soybean in coastal
>plain soil in Virginia. I have soil moisture measured before planting so I
>prefer starting simulation at the time "when inital conditions measured."
>to other "Suggested codes."   But, whenever I set Header START(Start of
>Simulation, code) as "I"(I=When initial conditions measured) and leave
>SDATE as blank in "Line 1: General" in Simulation Controls Section in
>FILEX, the model will always take "Jan. 0, 1900" as  simulation start date
>no matter what is the actual experiment year , even though if I set Header
>START as "P" and leave SDATE as blank in "Line 1: General" in Simulation
>Controls Section in FILEX, the running of the  model will prove
>successful. This means that "I" as "Suggested codes" doesn't work as expected.
>
>Can you help please?
>
>--------------------------------------------------------
>Jinzhong Yang, Ph.D
>Dept. of Crop and Soil Envir. Sciences
>Virginia Tech
>Blacksberg, VA  24061-0404
>Office Phone: +1 540-231-7893