Club of bologna proceedings

4.3. Decision support systems 
Growers are now faced with such a wide range 
of choices of how to grow their crops, that it is 
almost impossible for the average farmer to retain 
all the infor mation necessary to make the correct 
choice on every occ
a
sion. Seed and root
-
bed 
structure are two of the key components effecting 
crop perfor mance and yet most growers know 
little detail about what each crop needs and even 
less about how to produce such
s
tructures 
consistently. At least some of this information is 
now available through the many years of r
e
search 
which have been conducted. It is for this reason 
that I believe every grower should have available 
at his or her fingertips an expert knowledge
-
based system custo mised to their particular farm 
and conditions. For example, producing an
appropriate see
d
bed for weeds means knowing 
the weed s
pe
cies complement together with their 
germination and establishment requirements. This 
information is available, 
b
ut is not widely used.
Similarly, selecting depth and inte
n
sity of tillage 
relies on a range of factors i
n
cluding history of 
soil water content, weed type and pressure,
organic matter content, and risk of soil
compaction. Predicting the risk of compactio
n
could also be provided by a decision support 
system. This could work by using crop growth 
models to predict w ater extraction, and together 
with local input of soil information and rainfall, 
would enable soil water status at different depths 
in the profil e to be estimated. In turn this would 
allow farmers to determine the pote
n
tial for soil 
compaction damage, and assist in their
management of operations. This could include
whether to subsoil, what tyre equi
p
ment to use 
and at what depth to cultivate. 
Another primary use of the decision support
system would be selection of equipment. This is 
an extremely complex issue which involves
practically every operation on the farm,