A free interactive tool has been launched to provide apple and grape growers and prospective investors with a glimpse into how climate change may affect the risk and costs of common plant diseases in different parts of New Zealand.
Created as part of the Our Land and Water National Science Challenge funded by the Ministry for Business, Innovation and Employment, the Changing Climate: Disease Risk & Costs tool allows people to enter their orchard or vineyard’s address to view the risk of apple fire blight, grape powdery mildew and grape botrytis on their crops under different climate change scenarios.
It also translates that risk into financial terms, helping people understand how climate change may affect the cost of managing plant diseases on their land in the decades ahead.
“In simple terms it’s a portal into the future,” said Mike Barley, the director of New Zealand agri-tech company HortPlus.
“It helps with climate adaptation planning and provides easy-to-digest information for people in the apple and winegrowing industry who want to understand how plant disease risks are likely to change, and importantly, what the cost implications of those changes might be.”
HortPlus developed the tool in collaboration with Plant & Food Research (disease models, Te Ao Māori), NIWA (climate models), the Agribusiness and Economics Research Unit (economic modelling) and Applied Research & Technologies (disease model reviews).
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