APSIM 7.4 release notes

10th February 2012

This release of APSIM is a maintenance release with many defects fixed and some new functionality added.

The complete list of defects can be found here

Manager .NET

A new Manager module has been developed that allows users to write C# or VB.NET as a scripting language. This module is released along with the existing Manager module. Samples of the script can be found in the standard toolbox. Documentation can be found here

Factorial Designs

The APSIM User Interface now has a Factorial button that allows the user to quickly specify multiple variations on a base simulation. For example a sowing x variety experiment could be easily configured using this system.

Oryza, Rice Management Toolbox

• IRRI has made major changes to their rice model that improve on the 2004 version currently in APSIM. A newer version has been developed that allows the rice “biology” to be shared between the standalone version of Oryza, DSSAT, and APSIM. Full details of the rice biology changes are described on the IRRI website . This release of APSIM contains both the old (rice) 2004 version, and the newer version “Oryza2” in the developers toolbox.
• The toolbox used in the South Asia Training Manual is included in the standard release.

Windows 7 issues

Several Windows 7 installation issues have been resolved, particularly on computers where the user isn’t an “administrator” of their computer.

Foreign Locales

Several defects have been repaired relating to foreign locales (date and number formats), in particular the French locale.

Behaviour of default CO2 response

The default crop CO2 response has changed. If a simulation defines CO2 to a non-standard value (ie. other than 350ppm), crops for which a CO2 response is not defined will throw an error. NB Wheat, Oats and Barley are the only APSIM crop modules that are responsive to CO2.

User Interface Enhancements

• The graphing capability of the User Interface has been improved, particularly the series colour matching and legend positioning.
• The “Run on Cluster ” Button has been overhauled.