Quote:
Originally Posted by Caloosamusa
Good evening Dr. Nelson,
Is there a known or calculated rate of Bunchy Top infection in Hawaii?
It seems that the control measures are effective. Is this accurate, and how can it be calculated?
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In plant disease epidemiology, rate of disease increase in a population is represented by a parameter ("r") in a nonlinear regression model such as the exponential, monomolecular or Gompertz models.
One would evaluate models until the best-fitting one is found. After applying disease control measure(s) such as eradication of diseased plants, calculate r to see the reduction in the value for the parameter. One would have to have multiple plots of plants in an experiment to accomplish this.
For various reasons, I have not bothered to do that yet, Caloosamusa. Control measures
are successful in Hawaii, such as selection of planting location, selection of banana variety, planting disease-free pups (tissue culture, for example), and scouting for and eradication of diseased plants and control of banana aphids. Where no control is practiced, a farm could suffer a very high proportion of infected plants.
Scot