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Aref A. Abdul-Baki, |
Plant Physiologist, Sustainable Agricultural Systems Laboratory, Agricultural Research Station, United States Department of Agriculture, Beltsville, Maryland 20705, USA |
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The Date palm (Pheonix dactyliphera) in the U.S. occupies an area of approximately 6000 acres of land in Coachella Valley, southeast California, and 900 acres in Bard, near Yuma, Arizona. The date palm tree was introduced into the Western Hemisphere in the early part of the 20th Century. During the early years, over 100 varieties were evaluated in Texas, Arizona, and California for adaptability and performance. Present varieties include Deglet Noor, Mejhool, Khadrawi and Zahidi. Annual rainfall in the date production averages about three inches (75 mm). Consequently, all orchards depend on irrigation from the Colorado River. The two commonly used methods for water delivery are flood-basin irrigation and drip irrigation. The former is used for bearing-age orchards; the latter for date nurseries and newly planted orchards up to five years. Water management is governed by many important factors including orchard age, availability of water and soil properties which include texture, compaction, stratification, low fertility and high salinity. Soil management operations are designed to overcome major problems that limit tree growth and yield. These include slip plowing prior to planting the orchard, reducing the use of heavy machinery in field operations, maintaining adequate levels of soil fertility, controlling weeds, and leaching excessive salinity. All these operations impact tree vigor, yield and fruit quality. |
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Abdel – Azim M. El - Hammady |
Prof. of Pomology, Institute of Environmental Studies & Research, Ain Shams Univ., Cairo, Egypt |
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Management of date palm head is of great importance since it affect quantity and quality of the produced fruits. These practices include the following: |
1. Pruning: This practice is carried out to prune old leaves with reduced photosynthesis capacity, dry or diseased leaves, thrones on leaf bases, and removal of old, dry leaf bases that were left after pruning. |
2. Pollination: This practice is carried out either, manually or mechanically. The preparation of pollen, storage, pollination practice, importance of pollen source and factors affecting pollination efficiency are discussed. |
3. Fruit Thinning: This is usually practiced in the high valued cultivars. Different methods of fruit thinning, either, manually or by using growth regulators, effect of fruit thinning on yield quantity & quality as well as timing of carrying out this practice are discussed. |
4. Spath Positioning: The importance timing and different methods of carrying out this practice is discussed. |
5. Spath Covering: This is done, either to protect the fruits from unsuitable environmental conditions, or facilitate harvest, or protection from insects or bird damage. The different materials used for each purpose are discussed with the implementation of the benefits that are achieved. |
6. Harvesting Methods: Different stages of fruit growth are discussed, along with how to determine the right stage to harvest for different kinds of dates (soft, semi dry or dry types) |
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Fatehy Hussein |
Prof. of Pomology, Zagazig University, Egypt |
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Careful attention to cultural operations especially irrigation and fertilization in order to maintain good palm growth and yields of fruit of the best quality physiological stresses should be avoided. |
Although numerous and valuable scientific investigations have been made in the last 40 years, it is apparent that most of the information has not been applied to improving the crop at the growers level. |
The logical approach to rapidly increased production would probably improvement of existing plantings though different types of fertilizers as follows |
Organic manures Animal manures are widely used in the most date garden of the Arabian Peninsula and North Africa. The quantities of animal manure used, naturally vary to a great extent. Five to 15 tons per acre (4000m3) in the range of applications mostly reported from many date Districts. Sheep manures is preferred because of its relatively higher nitrogen content ( about 2.0%) compared with that of cow or horse manures ( 0.5 to 1.0% 0) Chicken manure is still higher in nitrogen content ( 3 to 5%), is being used when available . |
Inorganic nitrogen Recently, inorganic chemical fertilizers have been widely accepted as a major source of improving and maintaining soil fertility. Palm tress need sufficient nutrients in proper balance for normal growth and development. Sixteen chemical elements are known to be essential for date palms. Except carbon, hydrogen and oxygen, the remaining 13 elements are taken up by plants during development and crop production .The amount applied should be determined on the basis of whether it is used alone or in combination with manure or cover crops. |
Micro elements results of some studies clearly show the vital role of microelements e.g., Zn, cu, Fe, b and Mn as well as their combined effect, whether used in organic or inorganic from. on improving the total yields and fruit quality of date palm . |
Recent trends in fertilization of Date palm |
Fertigation with the developments of the irrigation and fertilization systems the technology of plant nutrition has been developed though the addition of fertilizers with the irrigation water , which has been called finally “ Fertigation “ obviously , Fertigation system affected by all factors affecting the irrigation and Fertigation system affected by all factors affecting the irrigation and fertilization of all irrigation systems. Kinds of fertilizers, time of application of fertilizers with the irrigation water though the Fertigation system has proved to play a major role in increasing growth, yield and fruit quality. Many investigations must be done to study the nutrient concentration in soil solution, saving in labours and energy, and flexibility in timing applications in relations to crop demand, regardless of growth stages of palm and fruits. |
Bio fertilizer recently, the trend is the usage of micro-organisms for plant nutrition. Using Biofertilizer is very important in case of the new huge projects due to the sandy soils, which lacks the biological activity. Many investigators are now trying to increase such bacteria population in soil to make the nutrient elements more available for plants and consequently increasing the crop yield. Moreover, elemental fertilizer application would be reduced which in turn lead to save the costs of crop production and keep the environment out of pollution. |
Uptake of nitrogen by date palm trees did not exceed 60% of that added in fast – release N fertilizer. These drawbacks of the fast release N fertilizers have promoted a search for fertilizer that characterized by lower loss of their own nutrients via drainage water. Using slow – release fertilizer was proved to be very favourable in improving growth , nutritional status of the trees , fruit set , yield and fruit quality date palms . Little work has been done on such slow release N fertilizers much more information still need for assessing the appropriate source the actual and optimum rates and times to be applied for gaining the maximum productivity in date palm trees. |
Research requirement for further investigation |
Special attention should be given to studies on the type of fertilizers used and the water requirements of date palm under the environmental prevailing in each region with emphasis on methods of irrigation and fertilization which lead to minimizing water consumption and loss of minerals. |
Emphasizing the importance of agricultural programs and trying to promote them, and offering courses which give information to those associated with date palm and train them on the modern techniques of developing agricultural operations of date palms. |
It is important to study the recent trends ( Biofertilizer , Fertigation and slow – release N fertilizer) in fertilization of date palms and its effects on reducing mineral fertilizer rates and consequently lowering pollution rates of water and soils . |
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Theib Oweis |
Water management/Supplement Irrigation Specialist, International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) |
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In the dry areas, water scarcity is the severest of the world, and in the Arabian Peninsula is characterizes by the maximum of the dry area. With very limited rainwater and ground water being depleted, most of the countries are increasingly depending of desalination of sea water. Agriculture and demand for fresh water in this region is growing. Increasing water supply from ground water and desalination implies high cost and serious environmental consequences. Agricultural strategies under extreme water scarcity should be based on sustainability maximizing economical and environmental returns for the unit volume of water. Crops that satisfy this criterion should be carefully selected together with water and agro management packages that ensure minimizing water losses and optimizing water productivity. Drought and salinity tolerant high value crops and plants indigenous to the local environment are more suitable. Date palm is a viable option in this region; however, current irrigation practices are inefficient. Adaptive research at the local level is required to develop options to minimize irrigation water losses and improve plant productivity. Effective extension and capacity building for efficient water use are also essential. |
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Hanaiya El-Itriby |
Director, Agricultural Genetic Engineering Research Institute (AGERI), Agricultural Research Center (ARC), MALR, Giza, Egypt |
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Three types of markers have been generally used in the assessment of genetic diversity in plant species, morphological markers, protein-based markers, and DNA-based markers. DNA-based markers provide useful information regarding genetic diversity and relationships between accessions, as these remain unaffected by environmental factors and the developmental stage of the plants. They also have the advantage of being abundant and highly polymorphic. Of the various kinds of DNA-based markers characterized so far, Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism (RFLP) was the first and until recently the most commonly used for the estimation of genetic diversity in plant species, but the RFLP assay is time consuming and labor intensive. The recently developed Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) marker techniques, which include Random Amplified Polymorphic DNA (RAPDs), Simple Sequence Repeats (SSRs), and Amplified Fragment Length Polymorphism (AFLPs), are playing an increasingly important role in DNA fingerprinting and pedigree analysis. |
Efficient genotyping technologies are going to play an increasing role in future breeding. However, widespread use of current genotyping technologies is limited by their low throughput and high cost. We see an opportunity to by-pass the sequencing paradigm and improve useful traits in agricultural species by a better knowledge of genomic diversity and better tools to recombine that diversity productively to generate improved individuals with superior characteristics. Efficient genotyping tools play a key role in this strategy. |
In the early 1990s the development of automated sequencers and computer programs capable of analyzing lots of DNA made possible two new approaches to obtaining sequence information. Instead of going specifically after a gene of interest, people created rich cDNA libraries (containing many of the expressed genes of an organism), picked cDNA clones randomly, and rapidly determined some of the sequence of nucleotides from the end of each clone. These expressed sequence tags or ESTs could then be compared to all known sequences using a program called BLAST. An exact match to a sequenced gene mean that the gene encoding that EST was already known. If the match was close but not exact one could conclude that the EST was derived from a gene with a function similar to that of the known gene. Although the most recent methods of hybridization based analysis (DNA Microarrays) using immobilized cDNAs (Schena et al., 1995), or oligonucleotide Microarrays (Lockhart et al., 1996), can potentially examine the expression patterns of a relatively large number of genes, these methods can only examine expressed sequences that have already been identified. In contrast SAGE allows for a quantitative and simultaneous analysis of a large number of transcripts in any cell or tissue without prior knowledge of the genes (Velculeseu et al., 1995). Also one of the most effective techniques which was developed by Kilian and coworkers, 2002 is the Diversity Arrays™ Technology, which is a novel genotyping method developed originally using plant genomes as models, which provides for low cost, high throughput, sequence-independent genotyping. |
To that end, using the techniques applied for genomic studies, extensive characterization at the structural and functional level of the vast genetic resources is now being applied. Together with the comparative genomic gene discovery component, the functional and structural characterization of diversity will provide the raw materials (i.e., the genes) for novel solutions to virtually any breeding objective. |
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Sami S. Adawy,1 Ebtissam H.A. Hussein,2 Dina El-Khishin,1 Mahmoud, M. Sak er3 Amina A.Mohamed1 and Hanaiya, A. El-Itriby1 |
1. Agricultural Genetic Engineering Research Institute (AGERI), ARC, Giza, Egypt |
2. Department of Genetics, Faculty of Agriculture, Cairo University, Giza, Egypt |
3. Plant Cell and Tissue Culture Dept., Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology Division, National Research Center (NRC), Cairo, Egypt |
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Date palm (Phoenix dactylifera L.) is one of the most important fruit crops in North Africa including Egypt and in Middle East. Egypt lies in the fruit largest producer among Arab countries. However, little is currently known about the molecular characterization of date palm cultivars. Determination of genetic variability and proper cultivar identification in date palm would be of major importance in improvement programs and in germplasm characterization and conservation to control genetic erosion. In an attempt to determine a molecular fingerprint characterizing each of the Egyptian date palm cultivars, three types of PCR based markers, i.e., RAPD, ISSR and AFLPs were applied on two sets of five cultivars cultivated in two different regions, Delta and Upper Egypt .Intravarietal variations were investigated using ten random decamer primers on seven to ten individual trees representing each of the five cultivars of the two sets. All the tested primers exhibited intravarietal polymorphism among the Delta set, while the Upper Egypt set revealed negligible intravarietal polymorphism. To asses the genetic polymorphism and to develop fingerprint for each of these cultivars RAPD,ISSR and AFLP analysis were conducted on bulked DNA samples composed of the DNA of the different trees representing each cultivar .Fingerprinting of the Delta cultivars (Zaghloul, Samany, Hayani, Siwi and Amhat) was conducted using 8 ISSR and 6 AFLP primer /primers combinations. This revealed a total of 53 and 433 amplicons, respectively and a level of polymorphism of 64.1% and 53.81%, respectively. DNA profiling of the five Upper Egypt cultivars (Bertmoda, Gandila, Malikaby, Shameia and Sakkoty) was carried out using 41 RAPD, 19 ISSR and 28 AFLP primer/primers combinations, thus exhibiting 259, 159 and 1135 amplicons representing a level of polymorphism of 18.9%, 34.6% and 41.6%, respectively. The genetic similarity matrices were estimated for the two sets and used to develop dendrograms revealing the genetic relationships. Moreover, unique markers characterizing each cultivar were identified. Furthermore, the genetic stability of tissue culture derived plants from cultivars Zaghloul (Delta) Bertmoda, Gandila, and Sakkoty (Upper Egypt) were studied using RAPD and AFLPs. The DNA profiles exhibited non significant polymorphism indicating the true to type nature of these plants. |
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Mohamed Saeed Gassouma |
Plant Protection Expert (Entomologist) |
The paper includes surveys and studies made over the last two decades on the “Arthropod Pests of the Date Palm”, in UAE. They are to be considered, more or less, as representative for the whole region, because of the similarity of the terrain, similarity of growing conditions and the passage of planting material throughout the years. |
The studies revealed the indigenous occurrence of |
· the dubas bug Ommatissus lybicus |
· the scale insects Parlatoria blanchardi and Phoenicococcus marlatti |
· the ‘the giant mealy’ Pseudaspidoproctus hypheniacus |
· the trunk-borer Jebusaea hammerschmidtii |
· two rhinoceros beetles Oryctes agamemnon and O. elegans |
· the two date moths Batrachedra amydraula and Aphomia sabella |
· the date mite Oligonychus afrasiaticus |
· the frond crimson mite Raoiella indica |
Over the years the author witnessed the arrival of more (exotic) pests imported with planting material |
· the Red Palm Weevil Rhynchophorus ferrugineus |
· the third rhinoceros beetle Oryctes rhinoceros |
· the third scale insect Fiorinia phoenicis |
The author also discovered and described a new pest the inflorescence beetle Macrocoma sp.nov. |
There is a recent growing importance of some of these pests; attention is also needed to be paid to the slowly spreading ‘Al wijam’ of the undetermined aetiology. |
With a limited knowledge of phytopathology, the author also recorded the common and most important fungal diseases of the date palm, in UAE |
The paper is composed of a pictorial and textual presentation of morphology, life cycles and management of the different pests. |
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Michael Brownbridge, Margaret Skinner & Bruce L. Parker. |
University of Vermont Entomology Research Laboratory,661 Spear Street, Burlington,Vermont 05405, USA. |
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Modern agricultural systems and trade in agricultural commodities has created conditions favoring the rapid establishment and spread of various noxious insects. This has promoted a heavy reliance on synthetic insecticides to control, limit, and contain the spread of these insects. Concerns over environmental pollution, human-health risks, and insect resistance have stimulated the search for alternative control strategies and their use within integrated pest management (IPM) programs. This approach emphasizes population monitoring to guide pest management decisions, use of cultural and biological controls, and limited insecticide usage. Biological control is considered a major component of IPM, but is frequently under-utilized. Microbial biocontrol agents, and fungi in particular, can play a significant role in the regulation of many insect pests; mycopathogens such as Beauveria bassiana and Metarhizium anisopliae infect many insects over a wide range of environmental conditions. Some notable successes have been achieved using fungi to control major pests such as desert locusts, tsetse flies, and Colorado potato beetle, under what may be considered less-than-favorable conditions. Novel delivery systems have also met with success in the control of pests that have been hard to contact with conventional sprays. To achieve similar progress against pests of date palm, a progressive series of steps need to be taken. First, to obtain candidate strains for testing, an extensive survey of the pest population throughout its range is likely to yield indigenous pathogens from infected adult and larval stages, and from soils in date palm groves; isolates recovered from or known to be active against related pests found in similar climatic/agroenvironmental zones can also be acquired. Whatever the source of the fungi, the same considerations are then required for their further development as effective and reliable pest management tools. Many pests live in cryptic environments, so pathogenicity trials should initially be directed against developmental stages that can be realistically targeted with fungi. Assays should be run at temperatures replicating those experienced at the time of insect activity to identify strains capable of infecting and killing the pest under these conditions. But virulence should not be the sole criterion for selection; active strains need to be characterized according to their spore production capacity (for mass-production purposes), and environmental competence (i.e., their ability to persist, germinate, grow, and infect insects in the environment in which they will be used). These are essential to the selection of the most suitable strains, and must be followed by the development of efficient mass production and delivery systems, and effective use strategies. The ability to produce and formulate large quantities of stable, virulent inoculum of consistent quality in a cost-effective manner is vital, but the complexity of the process is often underestimated; critical issues relevant to mass-production and formulation will be covered in this presentation. Compatibility of the fungi with other IPM components and non-target organisms must also be ensured. Field efficacy has to be demonstrated through scale-up trials, and the technology refined into a form that can be readily implemented and (with appropriate support and guidance) transferred to the farming community. Fungi have great potential for development as effective microbial control products, but their successful development depends upon these factors being addressed. |
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Awad M. Hussein |
Alexandria Postharvest Center (APHC),Faculty of Agriculture., Alexandria University, Alexandria, Egypt |
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Dates (Phoenix dactylifera. L.) were and still are an important crop in the Arabian peninsula (AP). Many advances have been made in the date palm culture and the fruit are processed, shipped and enjoyed throughout the world. However in some date growing areas there is more room for improvements of the industry. Harvesting, Postharvest handling and processing, storage and food safety considerations need to be reviewed and await more development. Postharvest ripening procedures currently applied and possible ways to improve it, organically produced dates and value added treatments will be presented. In the present paper such issues are addressed and related problem solving research approach is proposed. |
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Habib Bouabidi and Abdul-Qader Nabili |
Date Palm center Dguach, INRAT, Tunisia. |
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In Tunisia, “Deglet Noor” is the most important dates exported abroad. About 80% of these dates are exported after being treated inside packaging units which the majority are still following traditional methods. Thus, it requires more efforts to review these methods, especially drying ways for more efficiency, low cost and optimising best conditions to preserve dates quality in storage. For that purpose “Sorption Isotherms” were designed for “Deglet – Noor” dates at 5, 30 and 40 °C and were described by the theorical model of GAB. Parameters and constants of this model and moisture content in the monomolecular layer were evaluated. The necessary drying energy and shelf life were discussed. |
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Hasnaâ HARRAK |
National Agronomic Research Institute (INRA), Marrakesh,Morocco |
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In Morocco, the sector of date palm represents the main skeletons of the agricultural activity in the oases due to its environmental, economical and social influences. Indeed, the date palm constitutes an important part of the Saharan environment since it plays an important role in the protection of interplanted cropping systems and the stabilization of the ecological system. In the economic side, the date palm sector occupies an important position to the national level since its dates production, valued to 93 000 tons, generates a value of 744 million of dirham annually (average of 1989/90 – 1997/98). The dates also contribute to the farmer’s income (between 40 to 60%) and constitute an important commercial activity between the north and the south of kingdom. In addition to human consumption and animal feeding, the date palm assures a wide range of utilization products. |
Despite its economic importance, the date sector is facing several problems encountered during pre and post harvest techniques. These are mainly, traditional production practices (few care is giving to regimes and to harvest operation), inadequate packaging, inappropriate preservation methods, absence of transformation industries for low quality date, non-hygienic conditions of storage and inadequate commercialization circuits. |
In order to minimize the effects of the above mentioned constraints, research projects conducted by National Agronomic Research Institute (INRA) are aimed at elaborating post harvest technologies adapted to the national and international market. These are preliminary characterization of Moroccan dates and techniques of preservation, packaging, storage and processing. Research also focused on commercialization aspects. |
Results have show that there is a big difference between the varieties as regard to physical, chemical and biochemical criterias such as specific density, fibrous nature, pulp importance, acidity, water activity, sugars, aromatic components, and they gave some important informations concerning the commercial, nutritional, organoleptic and technological qualities. Results have also permitted the classification of varieties into different homogeneous groups according to their specific features. They have allowed making some propositions for the best way to use these varieties. |
Concerning date preservation, three main techniques were investigated date pasteurisation, heat treatment using “Gonet” oven and ionisation technique. The effect on disinfestation (destruction of date moth) and date quality preservation were studied. In its preliminary studies on date transformation, INRA has produced different derived products such as jam, paste, flour and juice. Ongoing works concern the indexing of the traditional ability notably the traditional methods of date transformation. |
Three main studies on date marketing were achieved and they included all the levels of the commercialization circuit (agronomic, technological and commercial). Indeed, two major aspects were studied Description and analysis of the present situation of the production, valorization and commercialisation, and investigation on date marketing system within the country (consumers and merchants level). Those studies have permitted to establish an integrated plan of actions in order to face the problems and constraints that hinders the development of dates sector in Morocco. One of these studies is published in French language under the title “Valorisation et commercialisation des dattes au Maroc”. |
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Ahmed Rafea |
Director, Central Laboratory for Agricultural Expert System (CLEAS), Agricultural Research, Giza, Egypt Center (ARC), MALR |
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The transfer of knowledge from consultants & scientists to extension workers and farmers represents a bottleneck for the development of agriculture in any country. The current era is witnessing a vast development in all fields of agriculture. Therefore there is a need for an unconventional method to transfer the knowledge of experts in certain domain to the general public of farmers, especially that the number of experts in new technologies is lesser than their demand in a certain domain. |
The information technology played an important role in information and knowledge dissemination in the last decade. The usage of IT to transfer information and knowledge in the agriculture domain is one of the areas investigated by many institutions. Most of the Schools of Agriculture in well-known universities have built sites on the Web to disseminate agricultural information to the extension services and growers. The Central Laboratory for Agricultural Expert Systems (CLAES) has been established in 1991 within the Agriculture Research Center in the Egyptian Ministry of Agriculture and Land Reclamation, to conduct research in the area of transferring the knowledge and expertise accumulated in agricultural research to extension workers and growers, using information technology in general and expert systems, in particular. |
Expert systems are simply computer software programs that mimic the behavior of human experts. They are one of the successful applications of the Artificial Intelligence field, a branch in Computer Science that investigates how to make the machine think like human or do tasks that humans do. Agricultural Expert Systems developed so far covers most of the knowledge areas for crop management including strategic decision such as variety selection, land preparation, planting, irrigation, fertilization, and harvesting, and tactic decision such as disorder diagnosis, control, and treatment. A typical agricultural expert system will ask the user about his/her plantation data for soil, water, weather, and any other abnormal observation and/or requirements, and produce a specific recommendation. It is like a plant doctor, which gives a specific advice for a certain plantation. It is not like a book or a web site where a user can find a lot of information and it is up to him/her to decide what to do. CLAES has developed in the last 10 years a dozen of expert systems for different crops and for animal health care. Experiments were conducted to measure the economic and environmental impact of using expert system in the field. The experiments showed that the net production has increased by approximately 25%. The impact on environment conservation was assessed using two measures water saving and chemicals usage reduction. It was found that fields managed by expert systems used less water by approximately 35 % and less fertilizers by approximately 16%. The impact on enhancing the performance of the extension workers when using the expert system was also measured. A tangible enhancement was observed which ranges from 80% to 157% in different expert systems. |
The objectives of this presentation are two fold first, to show how expert systems integrated with other information technologies can be used to strengthening the link between research and extension and second to report on two regional projects which are being implemented by CLAES in collaboration with ICARDA to build regional expert systems for tomatoes and cucumber under plastic tunnel for Arabian Peninsula region and wheat and faba bean for the WANA region. These projects can be used as models for regional collaboration in gathering knowledge related to a specific commodity at the regional level, building up an electronic repository of this knowledge, and availing this repository on the Web. |
The Virtual Extension and Research Communication Network (VERCON) will be presented as a successful example that demonstrates how different information and knowledge systems are integrated to serve researchers, extension workers and growers. Other stakeholders could also find the web site very useful (http//www.vercon.sci.eg). The site contains two expert systems fro rice and wheat, extension bulletins produced by research institutes and central administration for extension, statistical data produced by the economic sector, and growers problems system that enables extension workers to interact with researchers at different levels, and keep a repository of all problems raised and its solution, and unsolved problems, if any, to be transferred to researchers to find solutions for them through their research programs. The site also provides other services as news and forums. |
The experience in porting the cucumber expert system, developed under Egyptian condition, to the Arabian Peninsula will be demonstrated. The prototype expert system for cucumber can be accessed through the Arabian Peninsula Research Program web site http//www.icarda.cgiar.org/APRP/IT.htm. A workshop was held in CLAES for one week for researchers from Arabian Peninsula countries and developers from CLAES to fix the interfaces and knowledge extracted from the Egyptian version and included in the APRP expert system site. It was intended that regular reviews be done for updating information related to disorders and pesticides. More efforts are needed to fulfill this intension. The other project for wheat and faba bean are being implemented early results will be presented. In this project CLAES designed forms to acquire varities, agricultural practices, and disorders and their control in different sub regions in WANA. Most of the knowledge have been acquired and currently the system are being implemented. |