Modelling plant diseases for decision making in crop protection

Modelling plant diseases for decision making in crop protection
Relatore:  Dott. Tito Caffi - Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore
  mercoledì 6 febbraio 2019 alle ore 14.30 Sala Verde
Speaker: Dott. Tito Caffi
Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore
Dipartimento di Scienze delle produzioni vegetali sostenibili (DI.PRO.VE.S.) - Sustainable Crop Protection


Abstract:
A plant disease model is a simplification of the relationships (between a pathogen, a host plant, and the environment) that determine whether and how an epidemic develops over time and space. The approach for developing mechanistic, weather-driven, dynamic models which are suitable to be applied in precision crop protection will be presented. Model building consists of four steps: (I) definition of the model purpose; (II) conceptualization; (III) development of the mathematical 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 talk 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.

Contact Person: Davide Quaglia

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Data pubblicazione
8 gennaio 2019

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