CROP — Decision Support System for Crop Production

Abstract

Up to the present everybody realize that the modern agriculture leads to degradation of natural ecosystems and ecological potential, and can be considered as a serious polluter of environment. So it’s necessary to apply only those agricultural practices which minimize the processes of degradation and provide sustainable growth strategies. One of the most powerful method of analysis of development alternatives is mathematical and computer modeling. For natural ecosystems this approach is particular important. From one hand, it’s very risky and expensive to make experiments with real system. From the other hand, models can simulate long-term consequences, which help planners to evaluate different strategies.

Decision support system for crop production CROP 3.0 has been developed to analise agricultural risk due to climatic variability. CROP DSS has been applied on different crop data sets and different geographical locations (USSR, Hungary). It has been used to estimate the effect of global climatic changes on agricultural potential. CROP system is a user friendly software package for IBM PC compatible computers. Its application does not require the knowledge of mathematical modeling or programming skill.