Software for monitoring the nutrient and irrigation levels in oil palm

Abstract: Oil palm requires adequate irrigation and demands a balanced and adequate supply of nutrients for its growth and yield. Under irrigated conditions, studies were undertaken to standardize fertilizer and irrigation dose through fertigation and micro irrigation to improve nutrient and water-use efficiency, respectively. For these studies, the palm-wise data needs to be compiled and analysed to know the performance of various treatments. Software requirement analysis was done to identify the input and output characteristics of the experiments and related data management. Database modules were designed and developed in MS Access using the Visual Basic for Applications to record the palm-wise data on different characters and to retrieve information in the form of various reports for the selected period like day, month and year. User friendly screens were designed for this purpose. The software enables to retrieve the data on treatment means for various parameters and export it to Excel format for further analysis using any statistical software. The software was tested for its function and is implemented.