Epidemiological Insights into Farmers’ Management Practices: A Case Study of Fusarium Wilt in Strawberry

Climate change influences the incidence and severity of plant diseases in unexpected ways. Especially, rapidly changing weather pattern will affect disease management with regard to efficacy and timing of the currently available management practices, such as cultural, chemical, physical and biological ones, and their utilization within integrated pest management strategies. In this regard, it is getting more important to understand the management practices of a disease by farmers in the epidemiological perspective. The relative contribution of the three main epidemiological parameters (initial inoculum, rate of disease development, and period of time) to the development of a disease will need to be linked with available disease management practices to come up with the most effective and economic disease management strategy. In the study, we used the Fusarium wilt disease of strawberry as a case study to learn the epidemiological understanding of farmers’ management practices in Korea. A survey was conducted to identify major management practices for the Fusarium wilt and their levels of efficacy that are subjectively measured by farmers. Major management practices were then analyzed with respect to three epidemiological parameters.