Forecasting pests in field crops using real-time weather information: the CIPRA network in Quebec

Many diseases, insects, and weeds affect field crops every year. However, depending on weather conditions, the severity is very variable from year to year and very often control strategies are applied without considering this variability. With increasing concerns about production costs, food safety, and protection of the environment, appropriate timing of pesticide applications is required. Many pest forecasting models are actually available in the litterature or in development. However, even if many agricultural stakeholders recognize the relevance of using these tools, only few models among those are used. Many reasons may explain this situation: 1) availability and quality of weather inputs are not always appropriate, 2) the use of some specific models require purchase and maintenance of expensive devices, and 3) models do not always reproduce field reality and their predictive ability is often questionable. Following a consultation with different partners in the mid 1990s, the CIPRA (Computer Centre for Agricultural Pest Forecasting software was conceptualised, developed and implemented to overcome these limitations. The main objective was to access, in real time, weather data from a network of automated stations as well as the weather forecasts for the next five days. The modular approach of Microsoft Windows environment (Visual Basic programming language) was favoured for the development of this software. CIPRA modules are the following: general setup information, weather data transfer, verification and correction, weather reports, pest forecasting models for field crops, and reference help section.