Group Evaluation of Walnut Cultivars as a Multicriterion Decision-Making Process

In this paper we propose walnut evaluation procedure based on the group decision-making. To test an approach, the evaluation procedure is organized as a scientific experiment that exploits the knowledge of two walnut experts. With principal regard to nut characteristics of fruits, the multiple criterions of different metrics are used for shaping and filtering experts' preferences during the decision process. The Analytic hierarchy process (AHP) is assumed as a problem solution framework. Because two evaluators participate, the aggregation of the results is required. In the approach applied here, which corresponds to the decision-making without consensus, the AHP synthesis is performed for each evaluator individually, and calculated overall priorities of the alternatives are then aggregated. The case study application included two trademarked foreign cultivars and three national walnut varieties that are currently under procedure for registration as cultivars. The experiment proved that acceptable framework might be established to conduct user-friendly computer based decision-making process. It is shown that decision process tends to be fully consistent, and that weighting coefficients as global indicators of walnut nuts' quality may be derived with trustful reliability.