Questions about APEXGraze monthly (.MGR) output

[Mahesh Maskey]

Hello everyone,

While examining the APEXGraze monthly grazing output (MGR), I noticed two things that I do not fully understand.

1. Average Annual summary in the monthly output

The MGR file contains monthly grazing results, but at the end of the file, there is an "AVE ANNUAL" summary.

Since APEXGraze also produces a separate annual grazing output (AGZ), I am wondering:

• Why is the average annual summary included in the monthly output?
• Is this intended behavior?
• Is there an option to suppress the "AVE ANNUAL" section in the monthly output so that the file contains only monthly records?

2. Unexpected characters after the grazing name

In the "AVE ANNUAL" section, the grazing name (GNAM) is displayed correctly as HEAD_CATTLE, but it is followed by several unreadable or non-ASCII characters (see attached screenshot).

I would like to know:

• What do these characters represent?
• Are they expected output, memory artifacts, or an indication of a formatting problem?
• Is there a known fix for this issue?

Thank you very much for any clarification.

My own interpretation

The strange characters are not likely to be actual grazing information. They look like classic memory garbage (uninitialized characters) after the end of the string HEAD_CATTLE. That can happen if the Fortran code writes a fixed-length character variable without trimming it or if there is a formatting bug. It's something the developers would recognize immediately.

The AVE ANNUAL section, on the other hand, is probably intentional. Many APEX output files include summary statistics appended to detailed outputs. The question is whether there is a runtime option to disable it. That's something worth asking because it isn't obvious from the documentation.

These are both reasonable questions, and the screenshots you've collected should make it much easier for the developers to diagnose the behavior.

I appreciate your response in time
MAhesh

[Mahesh Maskey]

Are there any working APEXGraze examples with multiple herd types grazing the same subarea? I have been trying with three herds and scheduling separate grazing start/stop operations, but only the first herd appears in the monthly grazing output. I need to know whether APEXGraze supports multiple simultaneous herds or whether I should represent them as one composite herd.
Thanks