Subproject (SP) 10

SP- partners:

Leibniz-Institute of Agricultural Engineering Bornim, Engineering for Crop Production, Potsdam (ATB)

proPlant Company for Agricultural and Environmental Informatics, Münster

Müller-Elektronik, Salzkotten

Institute for Plant Diseases and Plant Protection, University Hannover

SP- title: Basic principles for site-specific plant protection

SP- lemma: Site-specific plant protection

Goals of this SP:

- aquire the basic principles for the site-specific control of fungal diseases in winter wheat under involvement of uniform and site-specific parameters

- modelling the probability of infection with fungal pathogens in sub-units within field with regard to integrated crop management

- defining the requirements to integrate site-specific plant protection in Precision Agriculture system on an arable farm

- developing the prototype of an expert system proPlant expert.precise for site-specific fungicide application providing application maps in consideration of different infection probabilities and yield potential within the field

- gathering demands for a hybrid system (application map + Crop-Meter) which is able to optimise fungicide spraying within the management units

Position within the network:

- reducing costs of plant protection

- minimising risks of chemical plant protection and better adaptation to consumer needs and nature conservation

- collecting data for analysing economic impact or sustainability etc.

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Longtime monitoring shows that there often is a heterogeneous crop development within field. Those subareas display differences in yield potential. Under these conditions fungal pathogens could show temporal and spatial variations in their occurrence.

For decision making in plant protection it is necessary to estimate plant disease infestation within the field. Sensors available at present cannot detect infected plants rapidly. An approach to aim a nearly constant moistening of all plants in a field is the use of the Crop-Meter, which estimates the plant surface or grown plant mass resp. for adjusting the amount of spray liquid.

At the time there exist expert systems like proPlant expert.classic, which forecast the probability of infection with fungal pathogens on the basis of weather and field conditions.With the development of proPlant expert.precise (prototype) infection probabilities with fungal pathogens can be simulated. Finally it results in an application map, being the basis condition for a hybrid system. In the management units the Crop-Meter will adapt the application amount from the map on the present plant surface.

In this year the basic principles of site-specific control of fungal diseases in winter wheat and the requirements for a hybrid system will be part of the work. In addition field trials were started on two project fields. Ratings give information about the infection status in wheat crop. Furthermore, the technical adaption of the field sprayer, existing at the ATB, is planned.

Up to date: 2005, June