Structured induction for agricultural expert systems knowledge acquisition

Abstract This paper gives a general discussion of knowledge acquisition and formalization using structured induction, and illustrates the application of induction with an example. The example is taken from actual work on a knowledge based system for malting barley crop management, where the ID3 algorithm was used to derive rules and generate a decision tree to make the irrigation decision. The objective of the paper is to give the reader a working understanding of the principles of induction and the mechanics of the ID3 algorithm.