ISHS Acta Horticulturae 313: III International Symposium on Computer Modelling in Fruit Research and Orchard Management
ORCHARD 2000: TOWARDS A DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEM FOR NEW ZEALAND'S ORCHARD INDUSTRIES |
| Authors: | Trevor A. Atkins, M. R. Laurenson, Tessa M. Mills, Dale K. Ogilvie |
| Abstract:
The orchard industries are becoming an increasingly important source of export revenue for New Zealand. One of the factors which will underpin future success is the adoption of Information Technology (IT) solutions to enable rapid uptake of new orchard management technologies. Currently a dilemma exists in the use of IT by the orchard industries: (1) large scale uptake of IT will not occur until orchardists see sufficient benefits to justify the investment of capital and time; (2) routine development of IT systems from discipline-based research programmes and the private sector will not occur without demonstrated uptake by growers. "Orchard 2000" is a development programme targeted at producing a comprehensive core of Decision Support tools and the required infrastructure of underlying databases. Orchard 2000 is intended to provide sufficient Decision Support tools to encourage IT uptake by orchardists and to catalyse the routine development of Decision Support tools as a means of achieving technology transfer out of discipline-based research programmes. This paper describes the philosophy behind the Orchard 2000 development programme, details progress and future plans for development, and outlines some of the lessons learnt. | |
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