Media release no.
Broadacre farmers can look forward to a season that will not be plagued by widespread outbreaks of aphids or the plant virus diseases they spread. That's the reassuring assessment of the season ahead from the results of computer modelling designed to predict the outcome for the coming growing period. Dr Debbie Thackray, who is based at Agriculture Western Australia, developed the system with funding assistance from the Grains Research and Development Corporation. The models simulate aphids arriving in cereal and lupin crops, how they assist the spread of viruses like barley yellow dwarf cucumber mosaic and bean yellow mosaic and cause subsequent yield losses. Dr Thackray said the risk of early aphid arrival and the potential of aphids to aid the spread of viruses in broadacre crops was very low throughout most of the grainbelt.