DESIGNING AN INTEGRATED COMPUTER PROGRAM FOR VEGETABLE INSECT, NON INSECT PESTS AND DISEASES AFFECTING VEGETABLE CROPS

Abstract

The major vegetable crop production in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia require easily produced sources of related information. However, there is a lack of such studies that lead to the use of com-puter programs or geographical information sys-tems in developing an electronic source for these extension, research, and scientific data. Farmers and agricultural engineers need a comprehensive database regarding insect pests, non insects pests, and diseases infecting vegetable crops in Saudi Arabia in Arabic language. Therefore, this project has been executed to design a complete database of such information. Included in this software are colored photographs, which will help users to get acquainted with methods of manage-ment of these pests and diseases. A data sheet has been designed to collect field information for each vege-table crop, including its pests and dis-eases, through field trips for many farms in all the 13 agricultural regions of Saudi Arabia. This field information has been compiled with what has been published in related scientific references. Upon completion of this program, confirmatory trips for five regions had been made in order to meet with farmers, agricultural engineers, and extension agents who are in agricultural branches of the Min-istry of Agriculture in these visited regions. The objectives of these trips were to get feedback about this program. Finally, an elaborate imple-mentation guide was prepared under the title "De-signing an integrated computer program for vege-table cultivation in The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia." Also, an attached manual, regarding the compo-nents and the operation of this program, was made. All of these materials have been distributed to farmers and interested people in the agricultural sector

Keywords

• vegetable insects
• diseases
• vegeta-