Project Report:
This project was successful in several regards. It provided support for Olena Sambucci as GSR, who ended up completing some of her dissertation on powdery mildew management in California grapes as a related by-product of her involvement in this project. Based on her contributions, we ended up generating a number of interesting insights and publishing an ARE Update article: “Behavioral Responses to Disease Forecasts: From Precision to Automation in Powdery Mildew Management” https://s.giannini.ucop.edu/uploads/giannini_public/57/a4/57a43d40-0972-40dc-8c8e-4fe5872498fd/v20n1_2.pdf. Unfortunately the real-time powdery mildew detection technology, which showed promise in the lab, delivered less successful results in practice. Based on this challenge, we pivoted in our work. For the reasons outlined in our ARE Update article, this would be an interesting topic to revive once the technology catches up to the evaluation.