Skip to main content
ARS Home » Southeast Area » Fort Pierce, Florida » U.S. Horticultural Research Laboratory » Subtropical Plant Pathology Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #335684
Title: Estimating the economic efficiency of various HLB control strategies

Author
item POSNY, DREW - North Carolina State University
item Gottwald, Timothy
item CUNNIFFE, NIK - University Of Cambridge
item GILLIGAN, CHRIS - University Of Cambridge

Submitted to: Journal of Citrus Pathology
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 12/20/2016
Publication Date: 5/18/2017
Citation: Posny, D., Gottwald, T.R., Cunniffe, N., Gilligan, C. 2017. Estimating the economic efficiency of various HLB control strategies. Journal of Citrus Pathology. 4(1):34/45.

Interpretive Summary: A principal challenge is understanding how to employ control measures in a way to stay economically viable. We use mathematical modeling to analyze the fiscal benefits of various control strategies. We investigate control schemes that utilize combinations of surveying, scheduled spraying, reactive spraying, tree removal/culling, and tree replacement. By linking costs and profit/yield in an epidemiological model, we can assess the economic efficiency of these control strategies.

Technical Abstract: The implications of different control strategies is critical when developing viable disease management plans. Cost, efficacy, disease/pest prevalence, and perceived consequences/benefits, among many other factors, play a role in deciding what control methods to utilize. Additionally, these control methods tend to change over time, reacting or adapting to the current situation. As ACP and HLB continue to spread, the need to assess and implement economically sustainable control options is paramount. We can investigate and compare the production benefits against the fiscal costs of various control strategies through mathematical modeling. We extend a spatially-explicit, stochastic, individual-based compartmental model (SECIR) to incorporate different combinations of control measures such as survey, insecticides/pest control, tree removal, and tree replacement. For surveying, we can implement different survey patterns and probabilities of disease detection. Insecticide spraying can be routine (e.g. annual spray schedule) as well as reactive (e.g. initiate an applicable spray depending on disease presence to reduce pest pressure). Further, infected tree removal or localized culling (removal of all hosts within a certain distance of detected infection) can be invoked to reduce the local inoculum, and replanting can be initiated. Under different combinations of these control measures, we can calculate the costs, model the spread of HLB, and determine the yield/production benefit.