DARABUG
Decision aid tool Monitoring tool
Darabug is a tool which was developed to simulate development rates of a range of pest insects in Australian agriculture.
Informed decisions on the need for and timing of control procedures for insect pests in crops require an understanding of insect development rates. The DARABUG tool provides a convenient and readily available means of predicting development times. The tool uses daily temperatures to generate estimates of the probable dates of occurrence of each stage in one generation of an insect.
The simulations can be run forwards or backwards in time, starting from the date of the observed insect stage. Duration of development is calculated within the program from linear or non-linear models of insect development, the parameters of which are kept in separate files. The program uses an approximation of daily minimum and maximum ambient temperatures to predict the probable dates of occurrence of each of the life stage transitions of one or more generations of a pest insect, starting from the date of an observed stage in the field.
The tool was developed by Garry McDonald (The University of Melbourne) and modified for industry use by Cesar Australia.
- Published
- Categories
- Integrated pest management