In 1985, effective, selective postemergence herbicides were just being released for use in soybeans. Weed scientists at North Carolina State University thought that the availability of these new products offered an opportunity for growers to shift from a preventive to a remedial approach to weed control; i.e., to delay making a weed control decision until after the crop and weeds had emerged. The grower could then assess the extent of the weed problem and reduce the risk of applying unnecessary or inappropriate chemicals.

Since most fields are infested with several weed species, and herbicides differ in cost and efficacy, determining whether a field is above an economic treatment threshold is not easy. It was decided a computer program could perform all the calculations and help growers to decide upon the appropriate course of action for each individual field. This resulted in the development of the DOS program HERB™. The first version was released in 1988.

In 1997, a more comprehensive weed management decision support system, named HADSS™, was released. HADSS makes recommendations for preemergence and preplant incorporated weed control, as well as postemergence. Since then, additional enhancements have been added each year. The database has been updated yearly with new herbicides and results from field trials. Weed scientists from other states have modified the databases to reflect the weeds and conditions for their state.

The current version of HADSS™ for North Carolina contains over 80,000 efficacy values for nearly 400 postemergence herbicide treatments (containing one or more of 100 herbicides) against 87 weed species in four crops. It includes 25,000 efficacy values for over 300 soil-applied treatments for soybean and corn crops. Decision-making is certainly no simpler today than it was back in 1985, even with the wide-spread use of genetically modified, herbicide-tolerant crops.