Development and Application of Crop Growth Simulation Modelling in Pest Management

Crop growth simulation models based on crop ecological and physiological processes, and coupled with pest damage mechanisms, are useful tools for analysing the interaction of pests with other biophysical components of agroecosystems. The use of simulation models in pest management started with the development of single-species population dynamics models in the late 1960s. Later, population dynamics models for bitrophic interactions between pests and natural enemies were devised. Crop growth simulation models were coupled with pest damage mechanisms in the mid-80s, but the approach was described as a one-way analysis of crop–pest interactions because these models accounted for pest effects on crop growth without the reverse being considered. A two-way approach for crop–pest interactions came into being with the interlinking of pest population dynamics models with crop growth simulation models in the 1990s. Pest management research is required to produce practical tools for developing tactics and strategies...