ISHS Acta Horticulturae 313: III International Symposium on Computer Modelling in Fruit Research and Orchard Management
IMPLEMENTATION AND ADOPTION OF AN AGRICULTURAL EXPERT SYSTEM: THE PENN STATE APPLE ORCHARD CONSULTANT |
| Authors: | E.G. Rajotte, T. Bowser, J.W. Travis, R.M. Crassweller, W. Musser, D. Laughland, C. Sachs |
| Abstract:
Expert systems are tools for agricultural management since they can provide the site-specific, integrated and interpreted advice that farmers and consultants need to more efficiently manage agricultural concerns. However, the development of expert systems for agricultural is fairly recent, and the use of these systems in commercial agriculture is rare to date (Travis and Lattin 1991). The development of an agricultural expert system requires the combined efforts of specialists from many fields of agriculture, and must be developed with the cooperation of the growers who will use them. An expert system known as the Penn State Apple Orchard Consultant (PSAOC1) was developed to help apple growers make better decisions about production and pest management. The system integrates various facets of apple production. It gives the apple grower the information necessary to reduce some purchased inputs by substituting high quality, integrated, information derived from three sources (state-of-the-art apple production and IPM knowledge; site specific, farm level data; and weather records). A primary emphasis of the PSAOC expert system is to decrease the detrimental environmental impacts associated with pesticide and fertilizer use as well as input costs, thereby improving farm profitability and reducing economic risk. After four years of development and testing, this system was made available for sale in 1990 to fruit growers in Pennsylvania through Penn State Cooperative Extension (Travis et al. 1992). The adoption of computer technology by growers is predicated on a linkage between a particular farm operation and the access conditions of the particular technology (Audiriac and Beaulieu 1986, Bowser 1990). These access conditions are determined, in part, by the development of the technology and by private and public diffusion infrastructures. The development of diffusion strategies that consider grower needs and capabilities relative to specific access conditions will accelerate the adoption of these new technologies. As an example of the application of the Audireac and Beaulieu model to expert systems we undertook a study of the use and impacts of an expert system on commercial apple farms. Apple orchards are highly diversified and complex ecological, economic, and social systems. Apple production is affected by a wide variety of insect, | |
Download Adobe Acrobat Reader (free software to read PDF files) | |
