Software environment for data acquisition, analysis and forecasting in rice research

Abstract

Agriculture is one of the prospective areas in which information technology can effectively be applied particularly for the research and development. Within this area rice research and development plays a major role by releasing new high yielding rice varieties and introducing new rice production and protection technologies. However, research development and institutes still have difficulties in accessing crucial information in order to make timely decisions. They also make lot of effort to manage the research data, perform statistical analysis and future yield prediction. We propose a Rice Research Tool (RRT) for the researchers and scientists in rice research and development institutes by which they can store and manage their collected data and get the advantage of making analysis and prediction process. Trial data collected by the researchers and field workers are the input of the system. The tool processes data and provides predicted values, statics, trial summery, reports and graph of yield trials as output. The tool consists of data management, sharing, analysis and prediction module which cover most of the research scenarios of rice research and development institute. Microsoft VB.net, ASP.net, SQL server and Artificial Neural network are mainly used in implementation. At the end of the evaluation process, there were positive signs that the contribution of Rice Research Tool will enhance the research tasks by increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of research work.