This paper presents design and development of an expert system for the diagnosis and control of diseases in pulse crops (PulsExpert). PulsExpert is an operational automatic diagnostic tool that helps farmers/extension workers to identify diseases of major pulse crops viz., Chickpea, Pigeonpea, Mungbean and Urdbean (highly consumed pulse crops) and suggests the appropriate control measures. Automatic knowledge acquisition system of PulsExpert provides user-friendly interface to the domain experts for entering, storing and structuring the domain specific knowledge. The knowledge base has been designed after examining the type and structure of the knowledge from different sources like literatures, books, databases, farmers, extension workers, etc. For a particular crop, knowledge can be entered by more than one expert using an automatic knowledge acquisition system and system automatically integrates the knowledge to build a consistent knowledge base. The knowledge base of PulsExpert contains up-to-date knowledge about 19 major diseases of pulses appearing right from seedling to maturity. The system provides user-friendly interface to farmers and asks the textual as well as pictorial questions. The order of questions to be asked is decided dynamically depending upon the answers of the farmer. On the basis of answers, PulsExpert diagnosis the pulse crop diseases along with its confidence factor and suggests most appropriate control measures which are composed of cultural practices as well as chemical controls. PulsExpert was evaluated by a team of field farmers and State Agriculture Officers and it was considered good with an average rank of 2.745 by farmers and 2.075 by State Agriculture Officers with a statistic mode ranking 3 in both the cases.

PulsExpert: An expert system for the diagnosis and control of diseases in pulse crops

Expert systems have been applied to solve agricultural problems for some time. The complexities involved in plant disease diagnosis make this problem a prime candidate for the application of expert systems. Those same complexities, however, make the development of a viable system a very challenging task. Many attempts at creating such tools have been reported in the literature, with different scopes and degrees of success. This article had the objective of organizing all the information that has been published on the subject in the last four decades by presenting a brief individual description of each proposed system, and then condensing all the information into a critical analysis of how the problem was handled in the past, how it evolved into the current scenario, and which are the possible directions to be explored in the future.

Expert Systems Applied to Plant Disease Diagnosis: Survey and Critical View

X-Breed: a multiple-domain knowledge based system integrated through a blackboard architecture

The paper describes the design, development and implementation of a specialized system for the management of insect-pests in pulse crops. It is a web-based system that facilitate “farmers/extension workers” to diagnose insect-pests of major pulse crops viz., Chickpea, Pigeonpea, Mungbean and Urdbean (highly consumed pulse crops) and recommends the suitable treatments. Knowledge acquisition sub - system of the system offers online interface for entering, storing and structuring the domain specific knowledge to the domain experts. This paper also presents a methodology to develop an integrated knowledge base which combines the knowledge fed by the multiple experts in the framework of knowledge. The system holds an integrated knowledge base that incorporates information for the diagnosing of 20 major insect-pests of pulses emerging right from seedling to ripening. The presented work provides user-friendly interface that is able to asks the textual as well as pictographic symptoms in the outline form of multiple-choice questionnaire. Based on given answers, system identifies the pulse crop insect-pests along with its confidence factor and recommends most suitable treatments. The system's performance was found good and comparison between recommendations of human experts and system itself showed 92% agreement.

Expert system for the management of insect-pests in pulse crops

This chapter is dedicated to the capture, preservation, reuse and learning of agricultural knowledge. We illustrate the potential of information technology with a simple example of a writing pen. Before the age of information, a person with a pen or pencil could write beautiful poetry. If she gave or loaned the pen to someone else, she could no longer write poetry, but the other person, would have gained a tool that helped write poetry. In this case, the first person’s loss is the second person’s gain, which, in economic terms, is a zero-sum game. Of importance is the fact that the relationship between the first and second person has changed and in order to continue writing poetry the first must obtain permission from the second to continue writing. Thus a certain measure of power has been passed with the possession of the pen and a dependency has changed between the first person and the second. Rare is the individual that does not see this as a clear disadvantage for the first person. Also rare is the relationship between two people that would not be strained by such a reversal. Imagine, however, if the first person were to make a copy of the pen and give it to the second person, while retaining the use of the pen and thus suffer no loss in ability to write poetry. The relationship between the first person and the second changes from one of dependency to one of collaboration and mutual empowerment. Rare is the relationship between two persons that would not be strengthened rather than strained by the sharing of our information age pen. In this case no longer is it a zero-sum transaction. No longer is there the capable and the incapable. No longer is there gain of one at the loss of the other. Rather it has become a win-win situation in which all gain. Under these conditions, the first person is more likely and could be stimulated to make copies and distribute pens to everyone in the world, since it no longer results in their losing the tools to write poetry. This is the potential of information technology. Information technology can enable and empower us to share tools without the loss of use of the tool ourselves. It seems we have yet to fully exploit the potential of this technology.

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Decision support systems in agriculture: Some successes and a bright future

Professor Papaya (Propa) is an expert system that solves disease, nutrition, insect and other problems related to papaya management. A moderator manages the interaction between the user and a panel of experts. During a session, the moderator periodically chooses a lead expert to work with the user. The role of the moderator and the knowledge of each member of the panel of experts are implemented as software routines. Dynamic relevance factors aid in the identification of the lead expert. Blackboards serve as communication devices between the user and panel. Propa can diagnose problems, recommend solutions and display and print articles related to papaya crop management and postharvest handling problems.

C. Leng Chia

Papers

Propa: a papaya management expert system