Epidemiology

Epidemiology

Defining Risk

The effects of a plant disease on quality and quantity of vegetable production and impact to growers is required to enable the cost-effectiveness of disease management programs (thematic area three) to be calculated and fully realized. This information also provides a foundation for both strategic and tactical disease management decisions.

Research within this thematic area is depicting the spatiotemporal attributes of epidemics, quantifying distances and patterns of disease and pathogen spread from inoculum sources, and implications for risk prediction in integrated pest management programs. A feature of research conducted within this thematic area is evaluating the benefits of digital agriculture for transformational change to the management of vegetable diseases.

Examples of activities in this area include the:

• Development of apps for use within plant pathology.
• Systematic review of the use of standard area diagrams for estimation of disease severity.
• New paradigms for spatial analysis of plant disease epidemics using pixelated data.