About Pacific Pests, Pathogens & Weeds v12

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When crop pests and diseases occur, farmers want help and advice immediately. They don't want to wait and in many cases they cannot wait. Unless they act quickly, the crop could be ruined.

This App gives extension staff and lead farmers all the information they need to treat the crop. If there is no way of saving a crop, the steps should help to prevent the problem occurring in the future.

What's new?

In version 12, we again concentrate on common weeds. Eleven are weeds and seven of them are from Micronesia, although they also occur elsewhere in the Pacific islands and beyond. We thank Konrad Englberger, previously with the Pacific Community, for his help in this, especially for sharing images. Among the nine remaining new fact sheets, we have three on insects, two on fungi, two on viruses, one on a bacterium, and one on a nematode.

All are in Oceania, except for the Tomato brown rugose fruit virus.

In total there are 555 fact sheets. And as we said in v11 the task now is to keep up to date by adding information to those already in the app., and to be on the lookout for new introductions, and emerging local pests, pathogens and weeds.

To use this App

Version 12 gives you three ways to use the App. Choose any of the following to:

  • Select 'Identify Pests & Diseases', as a quick way to reach a pest, disease or weed diagnosis.
  • Select 'Full Fact Sheets', for detailed descriptions of pests, pathogens and weeds.
  • Select 'Mini Fact Sheets', for summarised versions of the full fact sheets.

Identify Pests, Diseases and Weeds

On a computer, choose 'Identify Pests, Diseases and Weeds' and the LUCID key appears, divided into four windows. This provides you with ways of reducing the list of possible pests or diseases causing your problem.

  • CLEAR THE APP. First click the Restart button (left button at top of the four windows with opposing arrows).
  • CHOOSE A HOST. There are 5 choices: Crops, Trees, Ornamentals, Non-crop habitats, and Insects.
    • Choose which one is appropriate. For example:
    • Click Crops. This opens an alphabetic list of crops.
    • Choose a crop by ticking a box. Look at the top right window to see the list of fact sheets for the selected crop.
    • Collapse the list (click on Crops). Your choice is in the left window below.
    • Now, go to the next question.
  • CHOOSE A CAUSE. There 3 three choices: Biotic, Abiotic, Other.
    • Choose which one is appropriate. For example:
    • If a living organism (an insect, pathogen, weed, etc.), click BIOTIC and make a choice.
    • If non-living, click on ABIOTIC, and make a choice.
    • If unknown, click OTHER.
    • Collapse the list. Your choice is on the left window below.
    • Now go to the next question.
  • CHOOSE A LOCATION (Where is it?). There are 3 choices: Above ground, Below ground; On water.
    • Choose which one is appropriate.
    • Collapse the list. Your choice is on the left window below.
    • Now go to the pesticide issue, if appropriate.
  • CHOOSE A PESTICIDE ISSUE. There are 5 choices.
    • Choose which one is appropriate.

Throughout this search process you can see the fact sheets matching your selections in the window to the top right. The windows below keep a tally on the Features Chosen (below left) and the Entities Discarded (below right) as you make your choices.

Once you have your selections in Entities Remaining (top right), choose those that match your problem and review.

If you are using a phone or tablet, the sequence is the same, except the Restart button is at the top right of the screen. Results of your searches appear at the bottom of the screen:

  • Features: The 4 categories: Choose a host, Choose a cause, Choose a location, Choose a pesticide issue. Tap each and make a choice. Close the categories between choices
  • Selections: Tap on selections to see your choices
  • Remaining: Tap to see a list of possibilities for review

Full Fact Sheets

Choose 'Full Fact Sheets' and a list of available fact sheets is displayed alphabetically. Clicking the image opens the images only; clicking on the text icon opens the fact sheet, and clicking on the thumbnail opens the gallery of images for that fact sheet.

Each fact sheet is divided into several sections: common and scientific names, distribution, hosts, symptoms and life cycle, impact, and management. Version 12 of the App contains 555 fact sheets.

Note that each fact sheet can be searched, printed and saved as a PDF. Also, at the top of each fact sheet you can toggle between full and mini fact sheets or return to the login page.

Choose 'Mini Fact Sheets' and you will have summaries of full fact sheets, and similar, search, print and PDF options.

Remember that you can go to the Pestnet Community at any time to search the database or make a submission. Just click (computer) or tap (mobile) on ‘Pestnet’.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank ACIAR, the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research for providing support to Pestnet to develop the App. It has done so under a sub-regional IPM project for Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga and Vanuatu (HORT/2016/185). We thank Identic Pty Ltd., (https://www.identic.com.au), creators of Lucid and Fact Sheet Fusion for publication of the App.

Software used

Lucid v4 was used to construct and manage the diagnostic key.

Fact Sheet Fusion v2.05.198 was used to manage the images and data and create fact sheets for both the web and mobile application.

The Pacific Pests, Pathogens, Weeds & Pesticides app (Android and iOS) was created via the Lucid v4 Mobile Platform.

For more information on these tools please visit https://www.lucidcentral.org