WeedSOFT®: a weed management decision support system

Abstract

WeedSOFT® is a decision support system that was developed to help farmers and consultants in Nebraska with the selection of optimal weed management strategies. WeedSOFT® evolved from HERB, a bioeconomic model for soybean that was developed in North Carolina. The program is composed of four independent modules, namely, ADVISOR, EnviroFX, MapVIEW, and WeedVIEW. ADVISOR helps the user select a treatment based on maximum yield or maximum net gain. EnviroFX and MapVIEW provide environmentally relevant herbicide information and county soil maps that indicate vulnerability to groundwater contamination. WeedVIEW is a visual library of color images and line drawings of 46 common weed species. Over 500 farmers and consultants in Nebraska and adjacent states use WeedSOFT®. As a result of the current regionalization effort, the user base is expected to increase rapidly during the next 2 or 3 yr. This article explains the algorithms implemented in the current version of WeedSOFT®.