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COTONSIMBAD System: Modeling Feeding Behavior of Cotton Bollworms for Evaluation of Crop Pest Interactions

S. Nibouche, P. Martin, M. Cretenet, E. Jallas, and S. Turner

ABSTRACT

The indeterminate growth habit of the cotton crop allows yield compensation in specific conditions of fruit shedding. This peculiarity complicates the determination of economic damage thresholds. A single pest population may cause variable damage levels depending on the ability of the crop for compensation. The multiple interactions between the environment, the agronomic practices, the plant growth and the pest population dynamics limit study of thresholds with a classic field experimental approach. Recent progress in the modeling of cotton crop offer new tools for economic threshold studies. SIMBAD model (SIMulation of Bollworm Attacks and Damages) simulates the demography of four species of cotton bollworms (Helicoverpa armigera, Diparopsis watersi, Earias biplaga and Spodoptera littoralis) and their damages according to their specific feeding behavior. The linkage of SIMBAD to the crop model COTONS allows an assessment of yield loss due to a bollworm attack, depending on the agronomic practices and the environment characteristics. SIMBAD includes three sub-models, modeling respectively the populations dynamics of bollworms, their feeding preferences and their voracity. The COTONSIMBAD sys-tem may be used as a farmer decision-aid tool or as a research tool for study of economic thresholds.





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Document last modified April 16, 2003