Abstract

Decreasing supporting resources and increasing complexity of horticultural crop production necessitate the new technologies be developed to transfer information to farmers as well as commercial producers. Expert systems, a sub area of artificial intelligence of computer science offer the possibility to implement horticultural knowledge into field practice in the form of computer programme in order to support the farmers in decision making at farm level. This paper provides an overview of the concept of expert system and examples of areas of horticultural applications of these systems are in use at present are also outlined. This paper further examines how expert system techniques are being used at present in problem solving and why someone in the field of horticulture might want to use them.

Keywords: Artificial Intelligence, Expert System, Horticulture, Applications