VEGES—A multilingual expert system for the diagnosis of pests, diseases and nutritional disorders of six greenhouse vegetables

Abstract

Simple, plastic covered greenhouses are used widely in the Mediterranean basin for the production of out of season vegetables such as aubergine, bean, cucumber, lettuce, pepper and tomato, which account for over 50% (Spain and Italy) and 90% (Greece) of the total area of such greenhouses. Despite the economic importance of this greenhouse industry to the region, its low technology (LT) status has so far failed to attract the attention of the high technology (HT) software industry and in consequence, appropriate, low cost HT products for LT greenhouse management are not currently available. In view of the above, the authors initiated a programme partly supported by the Greek Ministries of Education and Agriculture for the development of HT software that is applicable to the LT Mediterranean greenhouse industry. In this paper an expert system (ES) for the diagnosis and treatment of the pests, diseases and nutrient disorders of the aforementioned vegetable species is presented. The ES has been developed on a PC-based shell and will be distributed to extension services and individual farmers for a nominal charge, which is independent of the cost of development. For use in other regions of the Mediterranean, the system is accompanied by a new language translation module which allows a non-specialist user (e.g. extension officer) to translate the knowledge base to the native language or dialect of the local farmers. The particular novelty of the ES is that it is a HT product that has been specially designed for use in a LT situation. The ES is cheap and, apart from a PC does not demand expensive hardware. It is thus readily applicable to the LT greenhouses of the Mediterranean area where low production costs are of paramount importance. Moreover, because of the similarity of cultivation conditions within the Mediterranean basin as a whole, the language translation module extends the application of the product to the significant vegetable production industry of southern Europe and northern Africa.