Application of GPS, GIS and related techniques in the diagnosis and management of plant diseases.

Abstract

Plant disease has been highly impacted by the development of new technology. The degree of the impact depends on how much the technology affects the component steps of the system. Many of the steps in plant disease diagnosis and management depends heavily on accurate and timely information and so can greatly benefit from the development of improved methods of accessing and disseminating information. Computers provide a wide range of tools which are extensively used in plant disease diagnosis and management. In fact, they will be a key to improve farm practices in the coming decades as it is scientifically pertinent to organize farm information in spatial database because agricultural systems are inherently spatial. Biological and physical aspects of agricultural system create spatial heterogeneity and as a result, patchiness in the rule in the occurrence and distribution of plant pathogens and disease (Campbell and Madden, 1990). In the area of plant diseases computers are useful. a. To store, retrieve and analysed data such as survey, surveillance and maintaining of disease incidences. b. To create database. c. For modelling and simulation of disease incidence/forewarming. d. For developing expert system for disease problems and decision making (Dhandapani et al., 2001)