Aerobiology in plant protection

Summary The control of phytopathogenic fungi in agriculture requires sometimes excessive chemical treatments because, in many cases, reliable monitoring systems in order to assess the real risk for the cultivations are not available.Therefore, the likelihood to assess the presence and the amount of phytophatogenic fungus propagules in the air with a spore-trap has been investigated in order to evaluate their correlation with the climate and the disease occurrence. Four phytopathogenic fungi, namelyVenturia inequalis, Phytophthora infestans, Cercospora beticola andDiaporthe phaseolorum var.caulivora were taken into consideration.Practical use of airborne spore monitoring in a disease control strategy proved to be useful only forVenturia inequalis andPhytophthora infestans causal agent of apple scab and tomato late blight respectively. For the latter, the utilisation of an aerobiological monitoring system for the disease prediction can be assumed.