DEP has suspicious 0-10cm soil moisture timeseries for constant Pasture/Alfalfa

[akrherz]

Whilst investigating all the things, I was looking more closely at the range of WEPP 0-10cm soil moisture by soil mukey. When looking at all OFEs by mukey that have at least some corn/soybeans, I found the min and max values to be rather constant between all the runs. Interestingly, for OFEs that were pure code P, these would have very inconsistent values between the various OFEs for the same mukey. Rewording, the 0-10 cm looks sus in this case.

Speculation:

• [x] The fact these have no tillage / planting operations, but just three harvests per year may be to blame.

[akrherz]

Adding a regression test using 101800140707_651, I get the following descriptive stats for sw1

count    5479.000000
mean        4.884382
std         2.783900
min         2.360000
25%         2.490000
50%         3.850000
75%         6.585000
max        28.600000
(mean value by year bounces around between 4 and 6)

First test, add a year 1 alfalfa planting and we get

count    5479.000000
mean        5.312944
std         2.734459
min         2.290000
25%         2.580000
50%         4.760000
75%         7.460000
max        35.190000 <-- jackpot
mean yearly values slightly higher

Now lets add a simple disk before that planting and get not much change (good)

count    5479.000000
mean        5.308927
std         2.731132
min         2.290000
25%         2.580000
50%         4.770000
75%         7.460000
max        35.070000
mean yearly values not changed much