Articles
A COMPUTER AID FOR DECISION-MAKING IN APPLE PEST MANAGEMENT
The program operates on an IBM-compatible microcomputer and uses commercial expert system, database management and spreadsheet software.
The system has three major components: DIAGNOSE, IDENTIFY and MANAGE. DIAGNOSE identifies pests from the injury they cause on buds, fruit, leaves or bark.
IDENTIFY determines names of arthropod pests and their common natural enemies found on trees or fruit or in pheromone traps.
MANAGE, the largest module, calculates the net benefit of a pesticide application.
Submodels predict crop value, pest damage, control efficacy and control costs.
Pest damage predictions are based on empirical models for codling moth and mites and on an expert estimate for scale.
Efficacies of pesticides are estimated by experienced researchers.
The program predicts the combined value at harvest of damage from accumulated populations of those pests selected by the user.
Then a list of appropriate pesticides is presented.
Next, the net benefit of an application of the user’s choice of pesticide is calculated.
Finally, the user may graphically compare side effects of the pesticide selected with those of alternative pesticides.
Side effects include toxicities to other pests, applicator hazard, bee toxicity, toxicity to western predator mite and risk of resistance development.