“After last season’s losses from apple scab in the Perth Hills and Donnybrook, it is essential this season to take control of apple scab and ensure the spread dose not continue throughout pome growing regions. ”
Pomewest, Stonefruit WA and Donnybrook Orchard Improvement Group (DOIG) have combined funding to deliver an exclusive Disease Modelling Project for pome and stone fruit growers this season.
Workshops will be presented on how to best manage the impact of black spot and powdery mildew in apples, pear scab and brown rot for stone fruit.
The aim is to improve the local knowledge and understanding of these diseases, and enable better preventative and control measures using the disease modelling support system RIMpro.
Horticultural advisor Marcel Veens has been engaged as the guest presenter at the workshops.
Plant Pathologist from the DPIRD Bunbury office, Andrew Taylor,will be providing pathology support throughout the project.
RIMpro
RIMpro is a decision support system that models a wide range of pests and diseases of fruit trees. The tool is based on disease models developed and tested by scientists in production regions around the world. Growers connect their weather stations to the system, and RIMpro’s models use the localized weather forecasts to simulate disease development in the coming hours and days. This assists in decisions over management of diseases, for instance, whether the risk is high enough to warrant a fungicide application or whether it can be postponed for a future time.
Weather Stations
There is funding available from DOIG to support Donnybrook growers to install a weather station to run the RIMpro model and share the modelling with the group. Each grower with a weather station running RIMpro will have their own account with real time weather forecasts, with other weather station members connecting to form a user group to share model outputs. Forecasting results and modelling outputs to be shared across the wider group, if the network can be established.