Configuration of the chemical mixture
The AgroManagementDisease component has a dependency from the CRA.AgroManagement component (Donatelli et al., 2006), which defines models called rules, to determine the timing of the implementation of the agricultural management practices, and models called impacts to simulate their effect on the cropping system via set of parameters. A rule can be defined as a set of conditions that must be met to trigger the simulation of an agricultural practice. This allows to define the timing of the application of a fungicide treatment according to different criteria, e.g., calendar-based treatments (i.e., a fungicide application every a fixed number of days) or epidemic-based treatment (a fungicide application when the number of successful infection events in a day is above a threshold).
The AgroManagementDisease component can be linked to the DiseaseProgress component and to the ImpactsOnPlants component in a dynamic simulation, to foster the evaluation of alternative spray programs on the development of the epidemic and on the crop yield losses, as well as with models to simulate the fate of the pesticides in the canopy, atmosphere and soil.
The AgroManagementDisease component offers the capability to build a chemical treatment made up of one or more active principles in a mixture. Each fungicide has to be characterized by an amount in the mixture (Dtot, mg l-1), by its optimal dose (Dopt, mg l-1) and by the fraction of each fungicide in the mixture (C%, %).
The initial efficiency of the chemical treatment (Dini, 0-1) is derived as:
The decrease of the efficiency of the chemical treatment is simulated as a function of daily air temperature and rainfall.
The free-downloadable software applications components MPE (http://agsys.cra-cin.it/Tools/MPE/help/) and ACG (http://agsys.cra-cin.it/Tools/ACG/help/) provide support and an user-friendly interface to compile the .xml files containing information about the active principles to include in the mixture, their parameters, and the rule to apply it. Below there is the step-by-step guide to create a chemical mixture
The user can select an existing fungicide or add a new active principle by indicating its parameters (see figure below), via the MPE application
In this example, two active principles are showed (Propaquizafop and Bitertanol), and for each of them the following parameters are set:
After setting these parameters, by using the ACG application, the user can choose the chemical mixture to apply, together with the rule, as shown in the figure below:
In this example, the same two active principles are chosen, and for each of them the user has to indicate the amount of pesticide to apply and the fraction of chemical in the pesticide. At the same time, the user can also choose the rule to which apply the mixture. In this example a simple rule indicating the day of the year to apply the chemical treatment is chosen.
Rules can be added independently by users by extending CRA.AgroManagement, as shown in ACG software development kit.
The parameters related to the chemical mixture are then calculated as the average of the ones related to the pesticides included in the mixture (see also topic Mixture eradicant effect and Mixture protectant effect).
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