HADSS™, Pocket HERB™, and WebHADSS™: Decision Aids for Field Crops¹

Abstract

Row crop weed management decisions can be complex due to the number of available herbicide treatment options, the multispecies nature of weed infestations within fields, and the effect of soil characteristics and soil-moisture conditions on herbicide efficacy. To assist weed managers in evaluating alternative strategies and tactics, three computer programs have been developed for corn, cotton, peanut, and soybean. The programs, called HADSS (Herbicide Application Decision Support System), Pocket HERB, and WebHADSS, utilize field-specific information to estimate yield loss that may occur if no control methods are used, to eliminate herbicide treatments that are inappropriate for the specified conditions, and to calculate expected yield loss after treatment and expected net return for each available herbicide treatment. Each program has a unique interactive interface that provides recommendations to three distinct kinds of usage: desktop usage (HADSS), internet usage (WebHADSS), and on-site usage (Pocket HERB). Using WeedEd, an editing program, cooperators in several southern U.S. states have created different versions of HADSS, WebHADSS, and Pocket HERB that are tailored to conditions and weed management systems in their locations.

Peanut Production in Virginia and the Carolinas: Development of a Website and Program Editor

“…The DSS also includes cost of production so that economic impact of the decision can be considered when pest management inputs are modified. WebHADSS is an online DSS that utilizes inputs from the user to calculate the market value of the crop and herbicide costs and compare those with weed population and competition data to create custom herbicide recommendations (Bennett et al, 2003).…”

Herbicide Reduction Methods

“…crop growth stage, weed species, weather conditions, herbicide spectrum, their economic and ecological properties and implications) is too large for intuitive decision-making (Mir & Quadri, 2009). For uniform field herbicide applications, many DSSs have been presented in research journals and several are also implemented and available as web-based, desktop and/or pocket (on-site usage) solution (Bennett et al, 2003;Rydahl, 2003). Frequently required inputs for DSSs are the grown crop, its competitive ability (e.g.…”

Benefits and Limitations of Decision Support Systems (DSS) with a Special Emphasis on Weeds

“…This issue is at the same time crucial for decision making and complicated since there are many interactions and factors involved. In all cases, attempts to set thresholds for weed control treatments have been made during recent years [16][17][18][19]. The majority of these models has been research tools intended to provide information for use by DSSs.…”