Computers - 92 


 

 

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Project Leader and Principal UC Investigators

Richard E. Plant, Dept. of Agronomy & Range Science, UC Davis

James E. Hill, Dept. of Agronomy & Range Science, UC Davis

Joyce F. Strand, UC Integrated Pest Management Implementation Group, UC Davis

 

Computerized management of California rice is becoming closer to reality. Researchers with this project report significant progress in the development of user-friendly "expert system" software.

Improvements made

After meeting in spring 1992 with about 10 growers who have been experimenting with the CALEX software program for rice, University of California scientists and a new computer analyst revamped the "look and feel" of the still developing program. Growers made two principal suggestions:.

  • Incorporate more economic information into the CALEX/Rice knowledge base into a spreadsheet for easy analysis.
  • Add a post-season analysis module to assess the effectiveness of management actions made during the season.

Harvesting and Drying module

The harvesting and drying module of the CALEX/Rice program was substantially revised based on the work of a UC Davis graduate student. Taking into account varietal differences, this module projects the proper harvest date based on crop moisture content and correlates it with reference evapotranspiration information. The module has shown a high degree of predictive accuracy (see figure).
 

This graph illustrates how accurate the CALEX program for rice was at predicting grain moisture dry down - 98.5 percent! Similar results were obtained for other varieties.
 

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