pataBanana: A Web-Based Decision Support Application for Calculating the Fertilizer Amount Based on Soil Test Result

Abstract

In the Philippines, the banana industry is one of best agricultural products and become a source of income for local Filipino farmers and foreign exchange earners for the country. In the Regional Research Agenda 2011-2016 issued by the National Economic Development Authority (NEDA), suitability of specific fertilizers on land/soil classes for varieties of bananas is one of the priorities. Researchers found out that agriculturists from Bureau of Soils and Water Management agency manually compute the fertilizer recommendation for a certain crop. The study aims to develop a web - based decision support application to assist agriculturists in calculating the exact amount of fertilizer by automating the computation process for fertilizer recommendation. The general formula given by the Bureau of Soils and Water Management (BSWM) serves as the algorithm for calculation. Decision Support System is used for predicting the number of banana herbs to be planted and the number of hands and fingers to be harvested. Descriptive development method using Iterative process model was utilized in the study. The application was developed using PHP Laravel 5.3, semaphore API for the SMS feature and black box for testing procedure.