Study on the improvement of fruit tree disease management using evidence-based control

Abstract

Agricultural production fields require methods for disease management that not only deliver superior disease control, but also reduce cost and labor, and facilitate reduced pesticide input or organic productionmethods. Tomeet these demands, we need to generate and evaluate data from high-quality scientific studies that have appropriate experimental designs. Therefore, I proposed the concept of evidence-based control (EBC) (Tashiro 2003, 2005a) and established an EBC study group within the Phytopathological Society of Japan. This group has held a workshop since 2005, through which it has outlined and disseminated the concept of EBC and emphasized the importance of appropriate data analysis methods to obtain reliable evidence (Tashiro 2006, 2007b, 2008, 2010b). I also developed a unique tree fruit disease management method by quantitatively and qualitatively assessing data using various statistical methods such as meta-analyses to gather evidence supporting a particular disease management method. I summarized the results of these analyses in ‘‘Disease and pest management of fruit trees that anyone can perform—easy agricultural chemical reduction’’ (Tashiro 2007a) and ‘‘Field guide to diseases and pests in citrus’’ (Tashiro and Masui 2014), and the concepts have been applied in various agricultural settings to achieve efficient pest control. In the next sections, I summarize my activities. Concept and practice of EBC