Help binding field to Date object

I'm used spring roo to create my project. In it I have created this form backing object

Code:

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package edu.unlv.cs.rebelhotel.form;
@RooJavaBean
@RooToString
public class FormWorkEffortQuery {

        private String userId;
        private boolean userIdSelected;
       
    private String employerName;
    private boolean employerNameSelected;
   
    private String employerLocation;
    private boolean employerLocationSelected;

    @Enumerated
    private Validation validation;
    private boolean validationSelected;
   
    @Temporal(TemporalType.TIMESTAMP)
    @DateTimeFormat(style = "S-")
    private Date startDate;

    @Temporal(TemporalType.TIMESTAMP)
    @DateTimeFormat(style = "S-")
    private Date endDate;
   
    private boolean datesSelected;
   
}

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Here is my view....

Code:

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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"?>
<div xmlns:field="urn:jsptagdir:/WEB-INF/tags/form/fields" xmlns:form="urn:jsptagdir:/WEB-INF/tags/form" xmlns:jsp="http://java.sun.com/JSP/Page" version="2.0">
    <jsp:directive.page contentType="text/html;charset=UTF-8"/>
    <jsp:output omit-xml-declaration="yes"/>
   
   
 <form:create id="fc_edu_unlv_cs_rebelhotel_form_FormWorkEffort" modelAttribute="formworkeffortquery" path="/workeffortquery?query" render="${empty dependencies}" z="Uf7OgrlFmtWkcuJmcJOSqG30iWM=">
           
           
           
  <table>
            <tr>
                    <td><field:input field="userId" id="c_edu_unlv_cs_rebelhotel_form_FormWorkEffort_NSHE"  z=""/></td>
                <td><field:checkbox field="userIdSelected" id="c_edu_unlv_cs_rebelhotel_form_FormWorkEffortQuery_useUserId" /></td>
        </tr>
              <tr>
                      <td><field:input field="employerName" id="c_edu_unlv_cs_rebelhotel_form_FormWorkEffort_employerName" z=""/></td>
                          <td><field:checkbox field="employerNameSelected" id="c_edu_unlv_cs_rebelhotel_form_FormWorkEffortQuery_useEmployerName" /></td>
              </tr>
              <tr>
                      <td><field:input field="employerLocation" id="c_edu_unlv_cs_rebelhotel_form_FormWorkEffort_employerLocation" z=""/></td>
                      <td><field:checkbox field="employerLocationSelected" id="c_edu_unlv_cs_rebelhotel_form_FormWorkEffortQuery_useemployerLocation" /></td>
        </tr>
      <tr>
                      <td> <field:select field="validation" id="c_edu_unlv_cs_rebelhotel_form_FormWorkEffort_validation" items="${validations}" path="validations" z=""/></td>
                      <td><field:checkbox field="validationSelected" id="c_edu_unlv_cs_rebelhotel_form_FormWorkEffortQuery_useValidation" /></td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
                <td><field:datetime dateTimePattern="${formWorkEffort_startdate_date_format}" field="startDate" id="c_edu_unlv_cs_rebelhotel_form_FormWorkEffort_startDate" z=""/>
                <field:datetime dateTimePattern="${formWorkEffort_enddate_date_format}" field="endDate" id="c_edu_unlv_cs_rebelhotel_form_FormWorkEffort_endDate" z=""/></td>
                <td><field:checkbox field="datesSelected" id="c_edu_unlv_cs_rebelhotel_form_FormWorkEffortQuery_useDates" /></td>
        </tr>
        </table>
  </form:create>
 
</div>

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Everything works fine except that whenever i try to enter a date into the endDate and startDate binding fails as i get this error:

[Failed to convert property value of type 'java.lang.String' to required type 'java.util.Date' for property 'endDate'.

I believed that spring mvc had default converters for dates.
I've been able to create a binder using propertyeditors for the date fields but that seems to take override the default type conversion for the other fields.
My question is how can i do the type conversion using the FormattingConversionServiceFatctorybean since I read that this is the direction that I should go.

I already tried to put a custom converter but it didn't seem to make a difference

Code:

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        /**
 * A central place to register application Converters and Formatters.
 */
@RooConversionService
public class ApplicationConversionServiceFactoryBean extends
                FormattingConversionServiceFactoryBean {

        Converter<String, java.util.Date> getStringConverter() {
                return new Converter<String, java.util.Date>() {
                       
                        public Date convert(String source) {
                                SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd");
                                java.util.Date date = new java.util.Date();
                                try {
                                        date = sdf.parse(source);
                                } catch (ParseException e) {
                                        // TODO Auto-generated catch block
                                        e.printStackTrace();
                                }
                               
                                // TODO Auto-generated method stub
                                return date;
                        }
                };
        }
}

        @Override
        protected void installFormatters(FormatterRegistry registry) {

super.installFormatters(registry);
                // Register application converters and formatters
registry.addConverter(getStringConverter());

}

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