Wheat disease risk forecasts by CropMonitor: in-season updates and risk forecasts via the web and mobile devices

摘要

Decision support for disease management in winter wheat has been a goal for crop managers and researchers since fungicides became available for the crop in the 1970s. Much work has focussed on predicting disease severity but the transfer of knowledge,if any, from such activities has proved problematic. Decisions on crop treatment are mostly strategic (decided well in advance) and subsequently backed up with more tactical decisions while actually out in field. Traditional methods of disseminating information on disease infection risk are not suited to either of these decision timings. Work on disease forecasting based on long term disease assessments and observed weather have been used to produce an eventual estimate of the severity of septoria leafblotch which can be issued before the T2 spray timing. In addition, as the season progresses, regularly updated weather data is used to issue continuously available risk indicators for the four main foliar disease of wheat. These can be accessed via a dedicated application running on a Smartphone or similar device therefore giving decision makers’ information on disease risk while in the field. While far from perfect, these types of systems may help resolve the long standing difficulties of transferring research findings into responsive decisions.