Is anyone else on this list using Spectrum instruments to monitor weather and model disease? - I've had a 'Watchdog' for several years now, and yesterday had an anomaly, with complete disagreement and inconsistencies between the three scab models -
The software uses models from Cornell, Washington State, and Mills (MI) - I'm used to Cornell being very conservative and WA being the opposite - this event, Cornell indicated 'infected', WA 'none', and Mills 'heavy' - I've never modeled an event with Mills being 'heavy' and WA 'none' - circumstances were such that we were cruising along in the lower 40'sF monday and then an overnight rain till 7AM tues morning - a two hour dry period, followed by a rain, followed by the violent front (no damage here, but tremendous light show) - while that front was moving thru, temperatures rose above 50*F for about 6 hours, peaking at 56*, before declining back to the lower 40's again - to add to the mystery, if I model tuesday, from the two hour dry thru the end of the event, I get the 'infected', 'none', 'heavy' analysis from the program - if I run the model from the start of the rainy event monday so to include the rainy monday night/early tues thru the end of the event wednesday morning, the Mills model indicates 'light' infection (Cornell indicates 'infected', WA 'none) - as a practical matter, at our stage of development, these temperatures, and specific schedule of the wet periods, I normally wouldn't worry much about scab infection - but seeing that 'heavy' infection indicated from the Mills model is disconcerting - dunno - any thoughts? thanks, David Doud grower, IN _______________________________________________ apple-crop mailing list apple-crop@virtualorchard.net http://virtualorchard.net/mailman/listinfo/apple-crop
