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Introduction
ICSim is an introductory program to create and edit crop management files in Windows, to run the crop simulation models and to display simulated results. It was developed by the Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering at the University of Florida and the Central Laboratory for Agricultural Climate (CLAC) of the Egypt Ministry of Agriculture and Land Reclamation, in collaboration with the University of Georgia. The project was supported through a grant of the Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) of the United States Department of Agriculture entitled “Integrated Crop Management Information System.” It was conceived after introducing DSSAT to students in Egypt during a one-week training program. We learned that students were sometimes intimidated and confused by the numerous options and capabilities in DSSAT, which seemed to be a deterrent to understanding its basic concepts and uses. Thus, this experience demonstrated the need for windows-based software that would introduce first-time users to the basic ideas and capabilities of crop models first, then allow them to move into its advanced capabilities more slowly.
The main purpose of ICSim is to introduce users to some of the main capabilities of crop simulation models of the DSSAT Version 3.5 software package. In particular, it allows users to specify weather, soil, and the main management practices to simulate crop growth, development and yield using any of the crop models and data sets contained in DSSAT Version 3.5. The program also automatically computes potential yield, assuming no limitations in water and nitrogen, based on the same crop management and environmental inputs. This provides new users an immediate demonstration of the concept of yield gap analysis by comparing potential yields with yields that may be limited by water or nitrogen or both.
ICSim is a MS-Windows application program that is used as an add-on to DSSAT Version 3.5. It requires DSSAT to be installed on your system prior to running ICSim. It uses the DSSAT directory structure, including the use of the DSSATPRO.FLE file, which designates the locations of all programs and data files used in DSSAT. ICSim was developed in MS Visual Basic (VB version 6).
