Warnings about the risk of disease developing in crops are one of the cornerstones of integrated pest management. They enable farmers to take action when needed and reduce the number of treatments required, in both organic and conventional production, while maintaining the correct yields and the quality of produce required for marketing.
In market gardening, there are few decision-support tools (DST) available today, and those that are available are poorly documented and expensive. The RELOAD project aims to develop and make DSTs available to market gardeners for the main fungal diseases of carrot, onion, cabbage and asparagus. These tools will be accessible via the Agromet.be platform, on which several DSTs for field crops are already available.
The project is based on an operational group comprising the Centre Interprofessionnel Maraîcher (CIM asbl), the CPL-Végémar, eight vegetable growers and the CRA-W.
To date, 244 disease observations (date × crop) have been carried out, spread over the 2024 and 2025 seasons across seven different sites in Wallonia. Each site is equipped with a connected weather station. The weather variables of interest are temperature and relative humidity, which influence fungal sporulation. Foliage wetting time is also taken into account, as free water on the leaves is needed for the spores to germinate and to penetrate the plant tissue.
The next steps will involve calibrating and validating risk models using this data, and then building a graphic display and advisory messages to enable advisors and growers to easily interpret the weather risk.
Illustration caption: Development of mildew on onions, and a weather station.
Funding: Project subsidised by the EAFRD fund, Wallonia and the CRA-W.
