Climatic Zoning and Plant Disease Potential – Examples from the Near and Middle East1

Actual plant disease and pest occurrence depends on many genetic and environmental factors, and frequently obscures the basic suitability of a given location to support or prevent epidemic development. In order to allow the demarcation of climatic zones related to the potential of disease or pest occurrence, we have used long-term average climatic data, especially monthly average temperatures and monthly average rainfall. If applied to sugar beet leaf pathogens such as Cercospora beticola and Erysiphe betae in the Near and Middle Eastern region, some interesting zoning became possible, which could be verified by extended field studies. Other examples that have been analysed in the region are apple scab, Venturia inaequalis, and downy mildew of grapes, Plasmopara viticola. A recent and ongoing analysis of the factors controlling chickpea anthracnose caused by Ascochyta rabiei indicates that the same principle may be applied for very different pathogens. Large-scale planning and control strategies as tried by the International Agricultural Research Centers should therefore be based on careful climatic zoning for plant pest and disease potential, to avoid waste of the limited genetic and financial resources available.