Integrated Crop and Soil Management Software

Objective measurements are essential for informed decisions about the behaviour of soils and plants. A microcomputer is the ideal tool to make this data available to a grower on a routine basis, but the software needs to have a straightforward user interface and to present the data in a consistent manner, whatever its source.

A software package has been developed, running on DOS PC's and Macintosh, that can display and graph data from:

portable data loggers, such as the neutron probe or Trase TDR
fixed data loggers, such as weather stations or soil moisture loggers
manual entry of measurements taken in the field
mainframe computers, such as weather data or insect counts
portable, hand-held units with data entered in the field
crop predictive models

Users can view and edit the data, draw graphs of all or selected items, overlay graphs to compare site-with-site or year-with-year. The software can also calculate, for example, the rate of root penetration or cumulative total water used by the crop.

The software is best described using case studies. It should be stressed that these studies have all been conducted by commercial growers as a routine part of their management practice.

Soil, weather and plant behaviour in California,USA
Deep drainage at Biloela, Queensland, Australia
Land Disposal of waste, Dubbo, NSW, Australia
Long term weather trends
Monitoring plant growth rates

The software is in routine use by growers and agronomists throughout the world. The software presents objective measurements of soil, crop and weather behaviour to the user in a consistent maner, enabling them to routinely monitor crop growth. Problems with through-drainage, over-irrigation and soil compaction can all be routinely analysed as part of normal management practice.