DSSAT Planting date issue

[wle0001]

Really like the improved, multi-planting date modification! One issue I found: Currently the harvest date is set for 180 days from the last planting date picked up. This causes an issue for Kenya, particularly, because the final harvest date is past the next seasons planting date. SO, when you run VIC long enough to cover the harvest period for the long rains, you actually pick up the next short rains season resulting in three seasons (the next years' season)...

I have worked around this by forcing the planting date list to 2 items in dssat init.py ~line 420:

if len(planting) >2:
planting = planting[:2]

As mentioned in the comments, a proper harvest date would address this issue.

[kandread]

Hi Lee,

I've been thinking about this, and apart from your solution we could implement a check to see if the 2nd planting date + 180 days exceeds the next planting date. However, that wouldn't capture the case when someone wants to simulate multiple years or when there legitimately are not enough data in the VIC simulation. Theoretically, RHEAS should print out the warning for the 3rd season and not run the model. I'm inclined to leave it as is, although I'm open to other ideas if they can catch different cases.

Kostas