Rice expert system for major pests and diseases

A web-based expert system has been developed to identify and analyse the situation pertaining to important rice pests and diseases. The knowledge base contains general decision rules that represent the knowledge of experts on pests and diseases. It has 90 rules for identifying insect pests and 105 rules for identifying diseases. An interface was developed with questionnaire supported by popup menus, list boxes including images for each item in the drop down menus. An inference mechanism was developed using ASP.Net to conduct formalised reasoning for user answers and corresponding rules in the knowledge-base. A separate module was called for control measures as biological, cultural, chemical and resistant varieties. These control measures are recommended based on the stage of crop, type of pest, nature and extent of damage and economic threshold level. User interface is completely menu driven with combo boxes, option groups for selecting answers to multiple choice questions and most of the questions were aided by images for ease of user work. This system aids progressive farmers and agricultural extension officers in hastening the decision making process.