A new potato late blight disease prediction model and its comparison with two previous models

Abstract

There are numerous disease prediction models for potato late blight based on recognition of weather conditions suitable for infection The models have the potential to target fungicide application to times of greatest need with a consequent reduction in chemical use The HartillYoung late blight model was developed about 20 years ago from disease and weather data recorded at the Pukekohe Research Station This paper presents the more sophisticated Shtienberg model which was developed recently from the same data but which treats components of the disease process separately The outputs of the HartillYoung and Shtienberg models and the established Fry model were analysed for the same input weather data at Pukekohe (high disease risk area) and Lincoln (low risk) over the last five growing seasons The Shtienberg model gave broadly similar results to the other two models