Acknowledgements and how to cite
xdssat is not part of DSSAT. It is an independent, open-source project. It is not developed, endorsed or supported by the DSSAT Foundation or the DSSAT development team. The names DSSAT and DSSAT-CSM appear on this site only to say which software xdssat works with. Questions about xdssat belong in its issue tracker, not with the DSSAT team.
It is also experimental. So far it has been tested on one main case study (rice in Java), five further case studies (maize after rice in East Java, millet in Niger, maize in Kenya, rice in the Mekong Delta and in northern Luzon), and the training examples. Use it at your own risk, and check its results against your own data before relying on them.
DSSAT
xdssat would not exist without DSSAT, the Decision Support System for Agrotechnology Transfer. It is developed and maintained by the DSSAT Foundation and the many scientists who have contributed to it over the years (Hoogenboom et al. 2026, 2019; Boote et al. 2025; Jones et al. 2003). Every simulated number on this site comes from the DSSAT-CSM engine. xdssat does not reimplement the crop models: it writes the engine’s own input files, runs the engine, and reads its output files.
What xdssat uses from DSSAT, and on what terms:
| From DSSAT | How xdssat uses it | Terms |
|---|---|---|
| dssat-csm-os, the source code of the engine | scripts/build_engine.py builds the engine dscsm048 from an unmodified checkout. xdssat does not include or redistribute the engine or its source. Version used here: 4.8.6.4 (commit 25c93b9a) |
BSD-3-Clause, copyright DSSAT Foundation |
| dssat-csm-data, the example experiments, weather, soil and genotype files | The tests and the training notebooks read them from a separate checkout next to this repository | The repository does not state a licence of its own |
| GLUE, the calibration tool | Module 3 uses a Python port of its method (docs/notebooks/glue.py), with links to the R code it follows (commit e86093e) |
BSD-3-Clause, copyright DSSAT Foundation |
The BSD-3-Clause licence of the engine and of GLUE asks that the name of the copyright holder and of its contributors not be used to endorse or promote derived products without permission. Nothing on this site should be read as such an endorsement.
The training material
The DSSAT training section is based on the DSSAT training held in Chiang Mai, Thailand, in 2018. The trainers were Prof. Gerrit Hoogenboom of the University of Florida and Prof. Attachai Jintrawet of Chiang Mai University. The modules follow its syllabus and exercises but are written for this site. The course’s slides and exercise sheets belong to their authors and are not reproduced or published here. The data files the course handed out for its exercises are used in the notebooks (docs/notebooks/course-data/).
Data of the case studies
The Java rice case study uses these data sets. The other case studies use global data (AgERA5, SoilGrids, MapSPAM 2020, OCHA boundaries); each page lists its sources and licences in its setup table. Full details, including versions and processing, are on the Data page.
| Data | Provider |
|---|---|
| AgERA5 daily agrometeorological indicators | Copernicus Climate Change Service, ECMWF (Copernicus Climate Change Service 2019) |
| SoilGrids 2.0 | ISRIC - World Soil Information (Poggio et al. 2021) |
| District rice statistics (BDSP) | Ministry of Agriculture of the Republic of Indonesia, from BPS (Kementerian Pertanian Republik Indonesia 2026) |
| Rice field and irrigation maps, agro-ecological zones, soil map | ATR/BPN, Ministry of Agriculture, BBSDLP (see the Data page) |
Software
The site is built with Quarto. Its charts and maps use Observable Plot and D3, and its equations MathJax. The Python side relies on NumPy, pandas, xarray and rasterio, among others (environment.yml).
How to cite
If you publish results produced with xdssat, cite DSSAT as the DSSAT Foundation asks on its How to cite DSSAT page: give the DSSAT version you used (it is printed at the top of every engine output file) and cite the references below. Then cite xdssat itself, with the commit or release you used.
DSSAT, as listed by the DSSAT Foundation:
- Hoogenboom, G., et al. (2026). Decision Support System for Agrotechnology Transfer (DSSAT) Version 4.8.6. DSSAT Foundation, Gainesville, Florida, USA. https://dssat.net
- Boote, K. J., et al. (2025). The Decision Support System for Agrotechnology Transfer (DSSAT) crop modeling ecosystem: evolution and advances. In G. Hoogenboom (Ed.), Current Crop Models: State-of-the-Art and Future Developments (pp. 3-63). Burleigh Dodds Science Publishing. https://doi.org/10.19103/AS.2025.0155.01
- Hoogenboom, G., et al. (2019). The DSSAT crop modeling ecosystem. In K. J. Boote (Ed.), Advances in Crop Modelling for a Sustainable Agriculture (pp. 173-216). Burleigh Dodds Science Publishing. https://doi.org/10.19103/AS.2019.0061.10
- Jones, J. W., et al. (2003). The DSSAT cropping system model. European Journal of Agronomy, 18(3-4), 235-265. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1161-0301(02)00107-7
The full author lists are in the references below and on the DSSAT page.
xdssat:
Istanto, B. (2026). xdssat: gridded crop simulation with the DSSAT-CSM engine, driven from Python. Version <commit or release>. https://github.com/bennyistanto/xdssat
License
xdssat is released under the Mozilla Public License 2.0. That licence covers xdssat’s own code and documentation only, not DSSAT, its data or the data sets above, which keep their own terms.