International Journal of Academic Engineering Research (IJAER) ISSN: 2000-001X Vol. 3 Issue 4, April – 2019, Pages: 22-29 www.ijeais.org/ijaer 22 An Expert System for Sesame Diseases Diagnosis Using CLIPS Hosni Q. El-Mashharawi, Samy S. Abu-Naser Department of Information Technology Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology Al-Azhar University Gaza – Palestine Abstract: Background: Sesame is a flowering plant in the genus Sesamum also called benne. Numerous wild relatives occur in Africa and a smaller number in India. It is widely naturalized in tropical regions around the world and is cultivated for its edible seeds, which grow in pods or "buns". World production in 2016 was 6.1 million tons, with Tanzania, Myanmar, India, and Sudan as the largest producers. Sesame seed is one of the oldest oilseed crops known, domesticated well over 3000 years ago. Sesamum has many other species, most being wild and native to sub-Saharan Africa. Sesamum indicum, the cultivated type, originated in India and is tolerant to drought-like conditions, growing where other crops fail. Objectives: The main goal of this expert system is to get the appropriate diagnosis of disease and the correct treatment. Methods: In this paper the design of the proposed Expert System which was produced to help Agriculture experts in diagnosing many of the sesame diseases such as: Phyllody, Dry root rot, Phytophthora blight and Alternaria blight. The proposed expert system presents an overview about sesame diseases are given, the cause of diseases are outlined and the treatment of disease whenever possible is given out. CLIPS Expert System and Delphi languages were used for designing and implementing the proposed expert system. Evaluation: The expert system in the diagnosis of Sesame diseases was assessed by farmers and agricultural engineers and they were satisfied with its quality of performance and ease of use. Conclusions: The Proposed expert system is very useful for Agriculture experts, patients with sesame problems and newly graduated Agricultural students. Keywords: Artificial Intelligence, Expert Systems, CLIPS, sesame diseases, agricultural experts. 1. INTRODUCTION Sesame seed is considered to be the oldest oilseed crop known to humanity. The genus has many species, and most are wild. Most wild species of the genus Sesame are native to sub-Saharan Africa. S. indicum, the cultivated type, originated in India. Archaeological remnants suggest Sesame was first domesticated in the Indian subcontinent dating to 5500 years ago. Charred remains of sesame recovered from archeological excavations have been dated to 3500-3050 BC.Fuller claims trading of sesame between Mesopotamia and the Indian subcontinent occurred by 2000 BC. Some reports claim sesame was cultivated in Egypt during the Ptolemaic period, while others suggest the New Kingdom. Records from Babylon and Assyria, dating about 4000 years ago, mention sesame. Egyptians called it sesemt, and it is included in the list of medicinal drugs in the scrolls of the Ebers Papyrus dated to be over 3600 years old. Archeological reports from Turkey indicate that sesame was grown and pressed to extract oil at least 2750 years ago in the empire of Urartu. The historic origin of sesame was favored by its ability to grow in areas that do not support the growth of other crops. It is also a robust crop that needs little farming support it grows in drought conditions, in high heat, with residual moisture in soil after monsoons are gone or even when rains fail or when rains are excessive. It was a crop that could be grown by subsistence farmers at the edge of deserts, where no other crops grow. Sesame has been called a survivor crop.(look to the Fig1 : sesame plant). Fig1: sesame plant Diagnosis of sesame diseases is a very complex because the sesame plant is small in size and other diseases may affect the plant. So they need Agriculture expert with wide experience of sesame diseases. For all the aforementioned reasons, we have developed this expert system to help Agriculture expert in diagnosing many of the sesame diseases, in order to prescribe the appropriate treatment. Expert System is a computer application of Artificial Intelligence (AI)[16-20] , which contains a knowledge base and an inference engine , the main components and details are represented in Fig 2. Fig 2 : Expert System