CABI shares expertise in Earth Observation data at International Pest Risk Research Group annual meeting

CABI has shared its expertise in Earth Observation (EO) data at the 2024 annual meeting of the International Pest Risk Research Group (IPRRG) held in association with the Spanish National Research Council and the University of Málaga in Spain.

The event, which was co-sponsored by CABI, was held at the field research station ‘La Mayora,’ 5km east of Torre del Mar in Spain, under the theme ‘Pest Risk Assessments: Embracing New Technologies and Understanding Socio-Economic Impacts of Plant Pests Amidst Rapid Global Change.’

CABI scientists, including Pascale Bodevin,  Tim Beale and Dr Bryony Taylor, Head of  Data Sciences and Modelling, Digital Development, joined colleagues from Assimila Ltd, Cervantes Agritech, University of Leicester and RAL Space, to deliver presentations and a workshop.

RAL Space conduct a drone flight demo as part of the workshop. They are capturing drone data for the project (this will be used to better understand the spectral signature of wheat blast). The people are watching a screen showing a live feed of the data the drone was capturing.

EO for pest modelling

The CABI researchers gave presentations on the CABI-led PlantwisePlus, Global Burden of Crop Loss (GBCL) and Pest Risk Information SErvice (PRISE) programmes – all of which utilize EO data in their delivery.

Furthermore, the CABI-led workshop focused on the use of EO for pest modelling including preliminary results from the STFC-funded projects ‘EO4AgroClimate’ and ‘Wheat Blast: Earth observation and climate forecasts for risk management.’

EO4AgroClimate is using EO data to improve the data layers used in models that predict where pests can establish, including irrigation, areas under protected agriculture and climatic canopy conditions. The datasets produced will help to contextualize species distribution data from repositories, as well as improve the performance of environmental niche models leading to more accurate, high-resolution, and timely information for pest risk assessment.

Prototype warning system for the fungal pathogen

The Wheat Blast project team showed how the consortium is using bioclimatic records, hyperspectral reflectance from drones, EO satellite data at multiple spatial resolutions, as well as stakeholder engagement to develop a prototype warning system for the fungal pathogen Wheat Blast (Magnaporthe oryzae Triticum or ‘MoT’).

Tim Beale, Senior Data Analyst, chaired an interactive session to gather feedback on how data layers are produced by the EO4AgroClimate project. The session explored areas including how data would be used in Pest Risk Assessment and how EO can be used to support the assessment of the likelihood of entry, establishment and spread of crop pests.

Pascale Bodevin, Project Manager for the Wheat Blast work, said, ″CABI was pleased to play a key role in the meeting of the International Pest Risk Research Group which brought together experts from various fields to discuss and exchange ideas on the latest developments in pest risk assessment.

″The event allowed us to demonstrate how, for example, CABI is working in partnership on Wheat Blast which is a highly destructive disease resulting in yield losses of over 50% when environmental conditions are favourable.

″CABI has developed a Wheat Blast CLIMEX model (a niche model that is used to indicate where and when pest and diseases may occur given certain weather conditions (temperature, precipitation)) to investigate the potential distribution of the disease using eco-physiological tolerances (how plants, animals and micro-organisms function together) and global occurrence records.

″Our initial results show a good fit between the modelled suitable areas and the known distribution of the disease, including potential suitable areas in other countries including Central and North America, Africa and Australia.″

Gaby Oliver, Junior Data Scientist for Digital Development, speaking at the workshop.

Improving the distribution models

Future work will focus on improving the distribution models with more refined stress parameters – conditions that affect the cycle of the disease pathogen such as cold-wet, hot-dry or moist-freezing.

Our partners, Cervantes Agritech, are developing an infection model that will identify locations and times when MoT infections can occur. This model will be implemented with the DYMEX modelling platform (a model that helps to predict pest populations (spatial and temporal) and disease infection) to model MoT dynamics in Bangladesh.

EO data is also being used to detect the biological stresses of Wheat Blast on wheat in Bangladesh, while scaling drone-mounted hyperspectral reflectance of Wheat Blast is being explored.

CABI is also leading on impact pathways and stakeholder consultation for the project. We are collaborating with key stakeholders in Bangladesh, Australia, India and Thailand to understand the current knowledge-sharing pathways for Wheat Blast information within these countries.

The 2024 annual meeting of the International Pest Risk Research Group was hosted by the Institute for Mediterranean and Subtropical Horticulture ″La Mayora″ (IHSM-UMA-CSIC). This was created in 2010 as a synergy between consolidated research groups from the experimental station ″La Mayora″ of the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones científicas (CSIC) and from the University of Málaga.