We are interested in making a connection between worker diagnosis of pest and disease problems and their subsequent ability to select the most appropriate pesticide.
Hello Michael,
As far as I know, there is not any data in this regard. The only thing you can refer to could be for example, farmers are supported by extension services to make the right choices. Likewise, modern farmrs often go to visit web-based technologies whereby they can find a lot of information on a given pest/disease and info on how to manage.
You can also refer to the reference and demonstration farms for example which can be considered as model systems for such issues.
I hope this info helps you
Hello, diagnosis and selection of a pesticide for a particular situation is a key skill in both yield optimisation and minimising pesticide use, as is timing of application of pesticides.. Agronomists spent alot of time/ effort on research and extension on optimum pesticide use but there seems to be few studies of the effectiveness of farmer/ grower decision making ability. Moreover, using a pesticide should not be viewed in isolation from other agronomic factors, e.g crop rotation, plant breeding etc. In Europe there is a Sustainable Use Directive (SUD) related to pesticide use and related factors and a document on strategies it uses is available on the web at: SCAR IPM CWG[1], also a useful paper can be sourced at Pest Manag.Sci 2011, 1481-1485. In Ireland a study by my colleagues ( Conry and Hegarty, 1997) related to crop production found that farmer management skill (not just related to pesticide application) has a significant effect on yield. I hope that this answer is of assistance.
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