Weed Seed Wizard download and help

Installing and using the Weed Seed Wizard

Download the Weed Seed Wizard and open the 'build your own scenario' help guide (either as a PDF or an accessible word document) or view the two tutorials (Setting the scene and Understanding the results) to get the most out of this tool.

Weed Seed Wizard - build your own scenario help guide

This document will guide how to build a scenario step by step and how to interpret the results.

Please contact us if the 'Weed Seed Wizard - build your own scenario' document does not answer your question; the Wizard is giving 'strange' results; you have found a 'bug'; or you wish to suggest improvements.

See the sub-pages for download instructions, how to load the latest parameter set and update the weather files.

To install the Weed Seed Wizard:

The Wizard requires Windows XP or above and Java 7. Don't worry about Java though – the Wizard installer will install it for you if needed.

1. Download by clicking the 'Download Wizard' button
2. Run the downloaded installer. If Windows asks if you want to allow the installer to make changes to your system, click 'Yes'.
3. Follow the prompts to complete the installer.
4. Advanced: If you already have Java 7 installed, you can untick the 'Download and install Java' checkbox. If you're not sure, leave it ticked. The Wizard needs a specific version of Java, so it does not count if you have an older or newer version of Java.
5. When the installer finishes, you can choose to run the Wizard now if you wish.

To run the Weed Seed Wizard:

• Double-click the Weed Seed Wizard shortcut on your desktop.

or

• If you chose not to add a shortcut, open the Windows Start menu, and select All Programs → Weed Seed Wizard 7 → Weed Seed Wizard

To load the weed parameter set:

The Wizard comes with a generic Australia default set of parameters installed. If you are using an older version of the Wizard, you may want to download the latest parameter set below. To download, right click and select 'Save target as', and save the file into a folder of your choice.

Weed Seed Wizard parameter set

• 2021 parameter set

To load a parameter set into the Wizard

1. Run the wizard.
2. Close the Welcome dialog.
3. Open model → load a parameter set.
4. In the file chooser dialog, open your downloads folder and select the parameter set you downloaded.
5. Press the 'Open' button.
6. This will open a 'Load parameters' configuration dialog. Choose which parameters you want to load; if you're loading a set of regional weeds from the website then you only need 'Species'.
7. Leave the 'Automatically back up my current parameters' checkbox unticked. This option is only useful if you’ve modified your own parameters and want to keep your changes to come back to later.
8. Press 'Load'. The Wizard will restart with the new parameters loaded.
9. See the 'build your own scenario' guide for more information on parameters.

To load weather data for your location:

The Wizard comes with a large folder of weather files covering most Australian cropping regions. The installer should have placed a shortcut to the weather file directory on your desktop. To choose a weather file:

1. Start the wizard.
2. Open or create a Scenario.
3. Press the 'Scenario setup' perspective.
4. Press the 'Weather records' button.
5. In the file chooser that pops up, navigate to your weather file directory and select the location you wish to use.

To update the weather data for your location:

1. Download the Weather files by clicking the Download Weather Files link under the Download button.
2. Save the folder in C:\Weather Files

• To get there on a normal Windows 7 PC, click Start Button → Computer → Local Disk (C:) → Weather File. If your zip program asks you what you want to do with existing files it’s best to get it to replace/overwrite the existing files.
• Alternatively, save the Weather files in a folder of your choice and once inside the Wizard, browse to use the weather file in your scenarios.

To create your own, new weather data file:

You may want to create your own weather data file. For example, you might want to use weather records from a specific farm, or a town not included in the current list of weather data files. Alternatively, you might want to try imaginary weather data, for research purposes. To create your own weather file.

1. Go to Local Disk (C:) → Weather File.
2. Open one of the .csv files at random. Re-save it with a new location name.
3. In the file, update the 'RAIN' (daily total rainfall in mm), 'MAX_TEMP' and 'MIN_TEMP' (maximum and minimum daily temperature in degrees celcius) and 'EVAPORATION' (daily evaporation in mm) data with data from your site.
4. Save the file with the updated data.
5. Note that the weather files have all the historical weather records for a site. For example, 'WA_Northam.csv' has data from 1/1/1912 to the present. If using your own data, you only need to include data for the time frame of your scenario. If you're looking at a scenario from 2018 to 2021, you will only need weather data for these years. So when creating your own weather file, delete all years of data prior to 2018.