Meteorological method based on wet foliage to determine areas at high risk of fungal epidemics

The occurrence of fungal diseases is closely linked to specific atmospheric conditions affecting the life cycle of the Fungus. Popular beliefs as well as scientific knowledge are in agreement on the effect of high temperature and moisture on fungal epidemics. The presence of a film of water on a plant, during an uninterrupted number of threshold hours is in many cases a necessary, and sometimes sufficient condition fur fungal infection to develop. In this paper, we present a method to estimate the sequence of hours of wet and dry vegetal surface. Conventional hourly meteorological data are used. The accuracy of this method has been studied over an ideal sunflower field located in Balcarce (Buenos Aires, Argentina) with promising results.