ACME (agile Crop Model Ensemble): A Package to Generate and Run Large Virtual Experiments with Ensembles of Crop Simulation Models

The objective of the ACME (Agile Crop Model Ensemble) software is to facilitate the simulation of large virtual experiments using an ensemble of crop models on personal computers running Windows OS. These simulations can either be point-based or spatially explicit. The package includes an ensemble of three crop models (executable files and input and output data) and two databases: ‘MasterInputOutput’ which contains the input and output variables of the models, and ‘ModelDictionary’, which contains the connections and required transformations between variables of the different models. In addition, an executable code ‘DataMill’ applies these transformations and manages the data flow between the MasterInputOutput database and the file system of each model, before (input parameters) and after (output parameters) running the virtual experiment.