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Decision Support Systems (DSS) in agriculture are computer-based tools designed to assist farmers, agricultural managers, and other stakeholders in making informed decisions related to various aspects of agricultural production and management.

These systems integrate data from multiple sources such as weather forecasts, soil conditions, crop characteristics, market prices, and farm operations to provide users with valuable insights and recommendations.

The key components of DSS in agriculture typically include data collection, processing, analysis, and presentation. They leverage technologies such as geographic information systems (GIS), remote sensing, and data analytics to generate actionable information for users. DSS can be used for a wide range of purposes in agriculture, including crop planning, irrigation scheduling, pest and disease management, resource allocation, and financial planning.

By utilizing DSS, farmers can optimize resource use, enhance productivity, reduce risks, and improve profitability. These systems enable users to simulate various scenarios, evaluate potential outcomes, and identify the most suitable courses of action. Additionally, DSS can help in complying with regulatory requirements, implementing sustainable practices, and adapting to changing environmental conditions.

This Topic page is a place where DSS tools and databases can be collated and shared. Please explore the DSS resources and initiatives under 'Connected Content' and share any that are not already on FarmPEP by creating a page and adding Decision Support Systems (DSS) as a connected topic.

Related Organisations

Content below is from across the PEP community and is not necessarily endorsed by Stewards or by PEP

Connected Content

AHDB Recommended List

The AHDB Recommended Lists for cereals and oilseeds (RL) publications and resources provide information on yield and quality performance, agronomic features and market options to assist with variety selection. The RL is updated annually with the latest update for 2023/24 being published on 28th November 2022. The latest lists can be accessed online here.

IPM Decisions

The IPM Decisions project will create an online platform that is easy to use for the monitoring and management of pests. Access the platform now at https://platform.ipmdecisions.net/  

WeedManager

Online guide to identifying arable weeds from ADAS, AHDB and BASF

Public Goods Tool

  The Public Goods Tool (PG Tool) has been in constant use since its creation in 2011 (https://www.organicresearchcentre.com/our-research/research-project-library/public-goods-tool/)

Markets & Prices

All agricultural produce has to be sold. Use this page to connect to useful resources, organisations and tools to help achieve the best prices. Information is also available on input prices, such as fertilisers.  

FarmSmarter

The FarmSmarter app is an agri-tech decision making service aimed at smallholder farmers.  Our primary focus is to support smallholder farmers in achieving sustainable profitable production developing regions. We are extending our development to cover sustainable farming practices and improvement of biodiversity and soil health in the UK and Europe for future additions to the FarmSmarter digital toolkit.

IPM Planning Tool

Create IPM plans for your farm

Grasscheck GB Bulletins

Grasscheck Bulletins provide up-to-date information on the state of grass growth in Great Britain

AHDB Slurry wizard

Our slurry wizard helps you work out slurry storage requirements, explore options and comply with regulations.  

Soilscapes Viewer

Soilscapes is a 1:250,000 scale, simplified soils dataset covering England and Wales.

Crop net margin sensitivity analysis tool

Enter your crop costs and see how different yields and prices will impact the crop net margin

Best 4 Soil Decision Support Tool

Healthy soils are important for the future of crop production in Europe and healthy crop rotations are a pre-requisite to maintain, improve or restore soil health. Nematodes and soil-borne pathogens are causing a threat to soil health. The decision support tools developed by the EU thematic network Best4Soil help the sustainable control of these threats.

Nematodirus Forecast

The forecast predicts the hatch date for nematodirus based on temperature data from 140 weather stations throughout the UK and should be used in combination with your grazing history (more below) to assess the risk of nematodirus infection in your lambs.

Variety blend tool for winter wheat

Based on RL data and parental diversity information, use the variety blend tool to select three-way or four-way mixes for on-farm testing.

The Medicine Hub for dairy, beef and sheep farmers

An online tool to help dairy, beef and sheep producers monitor and compare medicine use and tackle the threat of antimicrobial resistance.

Beef cattle in the arable rotation – Costings calculator

Beef cattle in the arable rotation has many benefits to both beef and arable producers. But what are the costs and margins involved?

UKSO Map Viewer

The UKSO map viewer is easy to use and has some of the most accurate and comprehensive available to view and use for free!

Nitrogen fertiliser adjustment calculator for cereals and oilseeds

Accounting for fertiliser and grain/oilseed prices, it calculates the adjustment in the amount of nitrogen to apply to cereals and/or oilseeds crops.

Beef and Sheep Cash Flow Template

Specifically designed for beef and sheep enterprises, this cash flow spreadsheet will help you quickly see when money is coming into and out of your business and where it’s coming from and going to.

Nutrient Management Guide (RB209)

The Nutrient Management Guide (RB209) helps you make the most of organic materials and balance the benefits of fertiliser use against the costs – both economic and environmental.

Webinar: Demonstrating the IPM Decisions and IPMWORKS projects for the reduction of pesticide inputs

Dr Mark Ramsden (ADAS) talks about the EU IPM Decisions and IPMWORKS projects, which together are supporting reduction of pesticide use across Europe

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Configure the meta tags below.

Use tokens to avoid redundant meta data and search engine penalization. For example, a 'keyword' value of "example" will be shown on all content using this configuration, whereas using the [node:field_keywords] automatically inserts the "keywords" values from the current entity (node, term, etc).

Browse available tokens.
Basic tags

Simple meta tags.

The text to display in the title bar of a visitor's web browser when they view this page. This meta tag may also be used as the title of the page when a visitor bookmarks or favorites this page, or as the page title in a search engine result. It is common to append '[site:name]' to the end of this, so the site's name is automatically added. It is recommended that the title is no greater than 55 - 65 characters long, including spaces.
A brief and concise summary of the page's content, preferably 150 characters or less. Where as the description meta tag may be used by search engines to display a snippet about the page in search results, the abstract tag may be used to archive a summary about the page. This meta tag is no longer supported by major search engines.
Advanced

Meta tags that might not be needed by many sites.

Geo-spatial information in 'latitude; longitude' format, e.g. '50.167958; -97.133185'; see Wikipedia for details.
Geo-spatial information in 'latitude, longitude' format, e.g. '50.167958, -97.133185'; see Wikipedia for details.
Robots
A comma-separated list of keywords about the page. This meta tag is used as an indicator in Google News.
Highlight standout journalism on the web, especially for breaking news; used as an indicator in Google News. Warning: Don't abuse it, to be used a maximum of 7 times per calendar week!
This meta tag communicates with Google. There are currently two directives supported: 'nositelinkssearchbox' to not to show the sitelinks search box, and 'notranslate' to ask Google not to offer a translation of the page. Both options may be added, just separate them with a comma. See meta tags that Google understands for further details.
Used to rate content for audience appropriateness. This tag has little known influence on search engine rankings, but can be used by browsers, browser extensions, and apps. The most common options are general, mature, restricted, 14 years, safe for kids. If you follow the RTA Documentation you should enter RTA-5042-1996-1400-1577-RTA
Indicate to search engines and other page scrapers whether or not links should be followed. See the W3C specifications for further details.
Sets a cookie on the visitor's browser. Can be in either NAME=VALUE format, or a more verbose format including the path and expiration date; see the link for full details on the syntax.
Tell search engines when to index the page again. Very few search engines support this tag, it is more useful to use an XML Sitemap file.
Control when the browser's internal cache of the current page should expire. The date must to be an RFC-1123-compliant date string that is represented in Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), e.g. 'Thu, 01 Sep 2016 00:12:56 GMT'. Set to '0' to stop the page being cached entirely.
Open Graph

The Open Graph meta tags are used to control how Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn and other social networking sites interpret the site's content.

The Facebook Sharing Debugger lets you preview how your content will look when it's shared to Facebook and debug any issues with your Open Graph tags.

The URL of an image which should represent the content. The image must be at least 200 x 200 pixels in size; 600 x 316 pixels is a recommended minimum size, and for best results use an image least 1200 x 630 pixels in size. Supports PNG, JPEG and GIF formats. Should not be used if og:image:url is used. Note: if multiple images are added many services (e.g. Facebook) will default to the largest image, not specifically the first one. Multiple values may be used, separated by a comma. Note: Tokens that return multiple values will be handled automatically. This will be able to extract the URL from an image field if the field is configured properly.
The URL of an video which should represent the content. For best results use a source that is at least 1200 x 630 pixels in size, but at least 600 x 316 pixels is a recommended minimum. Object types supported include video.episode, video.movie, video.other, and video.tv_show. Multiple values may be used, separated by a comma. Note: Tokens that return multiple values will be handled automatically.
A alternative version of og:image and has exactly the same requirements; only one needs to be used. Multiple values may be used, separated by a comma. Note: Tokens that return multiple values will be handled automatically. This will be able to extract the URL from an image field if the field is configured properly.
The secure URL (HTTPS) of an image which should represent the content. The image must be at least 200 x 200 pixels in size; 600 x 316 pixels is a recommended minimum size, and for best results use an image least 1200 x 630 pixels in size. Supports PNG, JPEG and GIF formats. Multiple values may be used, separated by a comma. Note: Tokens that return multiple values will be handled automatically. This will be able to extract the URL from an image field if the field is configured properly. Any URLs which start with "http://" will be converted to "https://".
The type of image referenced above. Should be either 'image/gif' for a GIF image, 'image/jpeg' for a JPG/JPEG image, or 'image/png' for a PNG image. Note: there should be one value for each image, and having more than there are images may cause problems.
The date this content was last modified, with an optional time value. Needs to be in ISO 8601 format. Can be the same as the 'Article modification date' tag.
Links an article to an author's Facebook profile, should be either URLs to the author's profile page or their Facebook profile IDs. Multiple values may be used, separated by a comma. Note: Tokens that return multiple values will be handled automatically.
The date this content was published on, with an optional time value. Needs to be in ISO 8601 format.
The date this content was last modified, with an optional time value. Needs to be in ISO 8601 format.
The date this content will expire, with an optional time value. Needs to be in ISO 8601 format.
Twitter Cards

A set of meta tags specially for controlling the summaries displayed when content is shared on Twitter.

Notes:
  • no other fields are required for a Summary card
  • Photo card requires the 'image' field
  • Media player card requires the 'title', 'description', 'media player URL', 'media player width', 'media player height' and 'image' fields,
  • Summary Card with Large Image card requires the 'Summary' field and the 'image' field,
  • Gallery Card requires all the 'Gallery Image' fields,
  • App Card requires the 'iPhone app ID' field, the 'iPad app ID' field and the 'Google Play app ID' field,
  • Product Card requires the 'description' field, the 'image' field, the 'Label 1' field, the 'Data 1' field, the 'Label 2' field and the 'Data 2' field.
A description that concisely summarizes the content of the page, as appropriate for presentation within a Tweet. Do not re-use the title text as the description, or use this field to describe the general services provided by the website. The string will be truncated, by Twitter, at the word to 200 characters.
By default Twitter tracks visitors when a tweet is embedded on a page using the official APIs. Setting this to 'on' will stop Twitter from tracking visitors.
The URL to a unique image representing the content of the page. Do not use a generic image such as your website logo, author photo, or other image that spans multiple pages. Images larger than 120x120px will be resized and cropped square based on longest dimension. Images smaller than 60x60px will not be shown. If the 'type' is set to Photo then the image must be at least 280x150px. This will be able to extract the URL from an image field if the field is configured properly.
The MIME type for the media contained in the stream URL, as defined by RFC 4337.