Use the late blight DSS (decision support system)!  A discrepancy was found in early August 2015 between the late blight DSS (accurate) and the late blight Simcast tool on NEWA (discrepancy).  We have identified the discrepancy in the NEWA Simcast tool—related to the time of day the spray application is made. Take this opportunity to sign up for an account in the Potato/Tomato Late Blight DSS where you can enter the time of day the spray application is made. Or, access it directly via blight.eas.cornell.edu/blight/.

To use the DSS you’ll need minimal training and an account.  Contact Laura Joseph (lje5@cornell.edu) about setting up an account. Laura recently retired, but she will forward your email to the right person to get you set up.

In the late blight DSS you can set up individual fields or farm locations that have different climate conditions because of elevation or exposure.  Save your information on specific fields or farms for the season, record fungicide applications, and track fungicide weathering along with disease severity.

For the most accurate and site-specific late blight forecasts, sign up for an account with the Late Blight Decision Support System!

The NEWA Simcast tool, accessed from the NEWA main menu by clicking on “Potato Late Blight Later Sprays”, currently doesn’t allow the end user to input the time of day a fungicide spray was applied and assumes the fungicide was applied at 10:00 AM. The discrepancy found between the Late Blight DSS output and the NEWA Simcast tool output was traced to the ability to specify the time of fungicide application in the DSS, but not in NEWA. This discrepancy is a rare event and had not been seen in over two seasons of running these tools simultaneously. Future upgrades to the NEWA Simcast tool will include the ability to enter time of spray application.