GROWTH-MODEL FORECASTING METHOD OF PLANT DISEASE EPIDEMICS

A growth-model forecasting method is proposed to be a new method of plant disease forecasting, in which the field data obtained during the early period of the disease development are used to fit a mathematical model (growth-model) which is then used to forecast the disease development in the following period;more data obtained in the following period will be used to correct the parameters of the growth-model and further forecasting will be made again. In the present study, epidemiological data of 47 sets of 9 plant diseases caused by fungi, bacteria or viruses were used to validate the growth-model forecasting method and among all the 917 forecasting tests the mean degree of accuracy was 86%.