Design And Development Of Knowledge Base System For Sugarcane Diseases Diagnosis

Abstract

Sugar industry plays a great role in the Ethiopia socio-economy . Sugar and its co-product are used for local consumption. Although, it plays a significant role in the economy of the country, the crop suffers from many production constraints like diseases and pests. Detecting those diseases at early stages enable us to overcome and treat them appropriately. This process requires an expert to identify the disease describe the methods of treatment and protection, but the expert is not always available to be referred. Expert systems help a great deal in identifying those diseases and describing methods of treatment to be carried out. By taking into account such advantages of knowledge base system, this paper presents a knowledge based system (KBS) in the area of agriculture and describes the design and the development of the rule based system, using prolog programming language. It focuses on the development of KBS for sugar cane disease control where it is intended for the diagnosis of common diseases occurring in the sugar cane plant. A knowledge base system is a computer program normally composed of a knowledge base, inference engine and user interface and the proposed system basically composed of these components. The system integrates a structured knowledge base that contains knowledge about symptoms and medication of diseases in the sugar cane plant appearing during their life span. Farmers, agricultural officers and planters who involve directly with sugar cane plantation may use this system as an assistant for helping them in managing the crop activities especially in diseases control. For development purposes, knowledge engineering methodology was selected as a guide. Perhaps, this system may become the most popular alternative for performing and work as an assistant to produce a better quality of sugar cane product.