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Rural Industries Research & Development Corporation
National electronic modelling network for pest, disease
and weed management
by Dr Robert W Sutherst
April 2002 RIRDC Publication No 02/030 RIRDC Project No CSE-83A
Primary industries incur significant costs annually in pest (insects, diseases and weeds) control. Australia lags behind other developed countries in its use of computer simulation models to guide the design and application of strategies and tactics for pest control. Its expertise to manage pests is thinly spread and collaboration has been difficult to achieve because collaborative tools have not been available. On the other hand, simulation models are now widely accepted by scientists as being valuable tools to help design management strategies and extrapolate research results to areas beyond the experimental plots.
The aim of project CSE-83 was to foster the development of a sustainable, national approach to IPM by developing a national and collaborative research paradigm in Australia.
It was proposed to achieve that by developing a national network of interest groups consisting of researchers, managers and industry advisors around each major pest/commodity. These interest groups would constitute a national, collaborative pest modelling network using the latest generic modelling and communications technology to enable participants to pool their expertise and share the resultant products. Such a group would provide industry with a consistent, national approach to IPM that will be able to respond rapidly to changing economic or environmental conditions.
The project helped to build communities of researchers and managers around a number of insect pests (Queensland fruit fly, Diamond Back Moth and Light brown apple moth), weeds (Bitou bush, Parkinsonia, Prickly Acacia and Rubbervine) and a plant disease (wheat striped rust). The CRCs for Weed Management and Tropical Plant Protection adopted and applied the project’s modus operandi and methodology to a number of other taxa. Experience with the networks stimulated moves to develop the IPM portal and national network for pest management in Australia (http://www.ento.csiro.au/ipm/).
Two generic modelling workshops were also run as part of the project. The project partnered the CSIRO McMaster Trust to run the first workshop to explore options for adopting a generic approach to the management of pesticide resistance across sectors in Australia. Participants ranged from insect pests, fungal and bacterial diseases of crops, livestock parasites, bacterial and viral infections in humans and weeds. Participants concluded that it was indeed possible to adopt such an approach, which opens up valuable opportunities to manage resistance in many sectors. Secondly, in order to build Australia’s ecological modelling capacity for pest management, a joint RIRDC-CSIRO-Weeds CRC training workshop was run for a week in Brisbane in January 2002. Participants from all over Australia and New Zealand gave the workshop a rating of 2.7 on a scale from 1-3. More importantly, it has built on the earlier workshops by providing in-depth skills in the use of modelling to analyse ecological problems and design optimal management strategies.
Other less tangible outcomes from the project include a collaborative culture, demonstrated by the lack of a single dissenter to the One-Australia team approach espoused during the project.
Not one scientist denied access to either their published or unpublished data. A new, process-based approach to understanding and managing environmental and crop protection problems was introduced to many researchers and managers. Significant constraints remain if the networks are to become sustainable. These include a willingness of Australia rural industries to adopt more sophisticated decision-making approaches to crop and livestock protection, achievement of a critical mass of collaborators and finding a means to support the infrastructure and core group that has to underpin the service. All this needs to happen in a predicted social environment in Australia in which technological proficiency and sophisticated science is not highly valued by large parts of society.
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