A Decision-support And Training Multimedia System For Integrated Crop Management In Brassica Vegetables

Vegetables are indispensable food for human daily life, and in China the total production of vegetables is secondary only to grains. With the reforming of agricultural production in recent years and participation of China in the World Trade Organization, the acreage under vegetable cultivation and the total production in this country have been increasing rapidly. Brassicas comprise a major group of vegetables in China and account for approximately 40% of total vegetable production. However, due to the inadequacy of agricultural extension system and the long-term, heavy reliance on chemical control, problems of pesticide resistance by pests and pesticides residue on agricultural products have been severe, and present serious threats to the healthy, sustainable development of the vegetable industry.With the popularization of computers and development of information technology, it is now possible to use modern information technology to retrieve and disseminate information to help solve practical problems in integrated crop management. Through the collaboration between a group of Chinese and Australian scientists, we have developed a decision-support and training multimedia system for integrated crop management in brassica vegetables, named as "BRASSICA ICM".The development of this system was started with needs analysis for the extension officers by questionnaires coupled with personal interviews in Zhejiang province, China. During the process of development, extensive interactions with the end-users were achieved by workshops and regular discussions, and every effort was made to develop the system following the needs of the end-users. The knowledge used to develop the system was retrieved from literature, experience of experts, and documents of agricultural organizations. Software used for developing the system included Dreamweaver 7.01, Lucid3, Search Engine Builder Standard 2.06, Dvbbs 7.0.0 Sp2, and Camtasia Studio 3.0.2. Web design techniques used for developing this system include HTML, JavaScript, CSS, etc.