The effect of cultivation on the size, shape, and persistence of disease patches in fields.

ABSTRACT: Epidemics of soil-borne plant disease are characterized by patchiness because of restricted dispersal of inoculum. The density of inoculum within disease patches depends on a sequence comprising local amplification during the parasitic phase followed by dispersal of inoculum by cultivation during the intercrop period. The mechanisms that control size, shape, and persistence have received very little rigorous attention in epidemiological theory. Here we derive a model for dispersal of inoculum in soil by cultivation that takes account into the discrete stochastic nature of the system in time and space. Two parameters, probability of movement and mean dispersal distance, characterize lateral dispersal of inoculum by cultivation. The dispersal parameters are used in combination with the chara

SUBMITTER: Truscott JE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC34634 | biostudies-literature | 2001 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature