Abstract
The improvement and application of pest and disease models to analyse and predict yield losses including those due to climate change is still a challenge for the scientific community. Applied modelling of crop diseases and pests has mostly targeted the development of support capabilities to schedule scouting or pesticide applications. There is a need for research to both broaden the scope and evaluate the capabilities of pest and disease models. Key research questions not only involve the assessment of the potential effects of climate change on known pathosystems, but also on new pathogens which could alter the (still incompletely documented) impacts of pests and diseases on agricultural systems. Yield loss data collected in various current environments may no longer represent a adequate reference to develop tactical, decision-oriented, models for plant diseases and pests and their impacts, because of the ongoing changes in climate patterns. Process-based agricultural simulation modelling, on the other hand, appears to represent a viable methodology to estimate the impacts of these potential effects. A new generation of tools based on state-of-the-art knowledge and technologies is needed to allow systems analysis including key processes and their dynamics over appropriate suitable range of environmental variables. This paper offers a brief overview of the current state of development in coupling pest and disease models to crop models, and discusses technical and scientific challenges. We propose a five-stage roadmap to improve the simulation of the impacts caused by plant diseases and pests; i) improve the quality and availability of data for model inputs; ii) improve the quality and availability of data for model evaluation; iii) improve the integration with crop models; iv) improve the processes for model evaluation; and v) develop a community of plant pest and disease modelers.
Highlights
Quantifying the impacts of plant pests and diseases on crop performances represents one of the most important research questions for agricultural simulation modelling (Newman et al, 2003; Savary et al, 2006; Esker et al, 2012; Whish et al, 2015a)
We summarize below a typical approach in plant disease epidemiology for disease process models, which provides guidance: 1. The disease cycle is represented by an infection chain (Kranz, 1974), which becomes the focus of analysis; 2
There has a been a shift in the type of model needed to make quantitative estimates of yield loss requiring models with a broader applicability, due both to the need to address the impact of climate change and to the interest on extending the capability of providing estimates globally
Summary
Quantifying the impacts of plant pests and diseases on crop performances represents one of the most important research questions for agricultural simulation modelling (Newman et al, 2003; Savary et al, 2006; Esker et al, 2012; Whish et al, 2015a). Esker et al (2012) provide a recent review of the current scientific framework to assess the importance of pests and diseases to crop production, including consideration (i) of production situations and associated (uninjured) attainable crop yields, (ii) of the effects of yield-limiting factors (i.e., abiotic stresses) on the harmful effects of pests and diseases, and (iii) of the interactions among pests and diseases These three elements have been analysed in a few important crop-pest systems, such as in potato in the USA (Johnson, 1992), groundnut in West Africa (Savary et al, 1990; Savary and Zadoks, 1992), lowland rice in tropical Asia (Savary et al, 2000a, b), and wheat in Western Europe (Willocquet et al, 2008). The objective of this paper is to present an analysis of the technical and scientific challenges in the development of process-based models for pest and disease modelling, and a possible road map to improve their capability for estimating impacts on agricultural production
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
