SUGAR-EX: An information and communication technology based decision making tool

Knowledge based applications of artificial intelligence have enhanced productivity in varied fields of science and technology. In the recent past, the advances in this field have percolated for use in agriculture as well. Sugarcane, a long duration crop is ravaged by many insect and non-insect pests limiting the cane yield. An expert system on sugarcane pests and their management that can bring broad knowledge base narrowed into a slice of in-depth system was developed. The concept of artificial intelligence has been deployed using simple commercial software packages with easy-to-use interfaces. This expert system takes into consideration sixteen major pests of sugarcane utilizing their symptoms/details of pest stages as identification cues. The primary goal of this expert system is to make expertise on sugarcane pests and their management available to sugarcane development personnel and cane growers in a portable computer based kiosk.