Modelling Plant Diseases for Decision Making in Crop Protection

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Abstract

A plant disease model is a simplification of the relationships (between a patho-gen, a host plant, and the environment) that determine whether and how an epi-demic develops over time and space. This chapter describes an approach for de-veloping mechanistic, weather-driven, dynamic models which are suitable to be applied in precision crop protection. Model building consists of four steps: (I) defi-nition of the model purpose; (II) conceptualization; (III) development of the mathe-matical relationships; and (IV) model evaluation. Conceptualization is based on systems analysis; it assumes that the state of the pathosystem can be quantitatively determined and that changes in the system can be described by mathematical equations. A conceptual model describes the system (both conceptually and mathematically), and a set of driving models accounts for changes caused by the external variables. Two main types of conceptual models are described: plant- and pathogen-focused models. Model evaluation is the judgement of the overall adequacy of the model, which includes: verification, validation, uncertainty analysis, sensitivity analysis, and judgement of utility. Finally, the chapter briefly considers how models can be used as tools for decision making at different scales of time and space: from warning services to precision agriculture.

Keywords

Root Mean Square Error Powdery Mildew Crop Protection Driving Model Wetness Duration 
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
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Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media B.V.  2010

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Istituto di Entomologia e Patologia vegetale, Università Cattolica del Sacro CuorePiacenzaItaly
  2. 2.Horta Srl, Università Cattolica del Sacro CuorePiacenzaItaly

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