I am a research technologist and I have been involved in plant breeding for 16 years. I have used AGROBASE since it was a DOS based program and have graduated up the versions over the years and converted to Generation II in January 2006. I found the conversion of all my old data very easy and the usefulness of Gen II to be phenomenal.
I had never taken advantage of many of the functions in the older versions of AGROBASE because I found them cumbersome and difficult to manipulate, relying on other programs like SAS and Excel to execute what I needed. Gen II has changed all that file manipulation for me. I now use the program as it was intended, from entry list to final output, it does it all.
Over the years I have taken three training courses, that last one prior to our conversion to Gen II. Dr. Mulitze is an excellent instructor and answered many of the concerns I had about the program. The support staff at Agronomix is exceptional from the Office Staff (Trish), to the Software Support Staff (Kim), to Mr. Blatta in Product Development, to Dr. Mulitze. Everyone is always willing to listen to my comments and suggestions for possible advances for Generation II or helping solve problems, which make my job easier.
Vadim Jitkov a technologist on another breeding program in our college, who had also been using the same older version of the program we were using, chose to switch to Gen II at the same time we did. We both went on a campaign, of sorts, to introduce AGROBASE to four other research programs via the training session Dr. Mulitze teaches. We now have four additional research programs that are using Gen II. Having that many users in one locale to discuss AGROBASE issues is a great advantage. We all have constructive discussions and can learn together, and would highly recommend that the more users you have in one place the better.
|