February 2021 - 7

Group recognizes engineer for strawberry spray app
By Brad Buck
University of Florida
Now that we're knee-deep in strawberry
season in Florida, many growers owe
Clyde Fraisse and Natalia Peres a debt of
gratitude. About a decade ago, Peres saw
a need for a fungicide decision-support
tool. Farmers sprayed about every week
to control strawberry diseases known
as anthracnose and botrytis during
the growing season, which goes from
November through March in Florida.
Peres, a University of Florida, Institute of
Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS)
professor of plant pathology, knew that
calendar-based spraying wasted money
for the grower and led to increased risk of
fungicide resistance. So, she approached
Fraisse, a UF/IFAS professor of agricultural
and biological engineering.
Fraisse and his team used innovative
agrometeorological approaches to develop
a web-based tool that was released in 2011
using disease models developed by Peres
and her group. Known as the Strawberry
Advisory System (SAS), it uses data such
as temperature and leaf wetness to tell
growers when to spray fungicide.
Flash forward about nine years, and now,
the World Meteorological Organization
(WMO) has recognized Fraisse for his
work on the development of an app, which
gives growers alerts straight to their cell
phones or computers about when to spray
for fungi that imperil their crops.
Before Fraisse and others developed
SAS, strawberry growers sprayed regularly,
whether they needed to or not, because they
were concerned about the risk to such a
high-value crop. When conditions are ripe
for botrytis to spread - lower temperatures
and dampness on leaves - strawberry
production can decrease by 50 percent, even
if a grower uses a scheduled fungicide.
Fraisse and Peres noticed that growers
were very connected to their mobile
devices, so they worked with Jose Henrique
Andreis, a former UF/IFAS engineer, to
develop SAS into an app, available on iOS or
Android. And in 2020, they came out with
an improved version of SAS.
The tool recently won the award for
" weather/climate information for farming "
in the WMO's apps category.
" I was not expecting the award but was
of course very happy as it recognizes the
work that we as a team have done over the
last decade, " Fraisse said. " The app itself is
very well-designed and implemented but it
represents a lot of work conducted by my
team and Natalia Peres' team. "
Peres, a faculty member at the
UF/IFAS Gulf Coast Research and
Education Center in Hillsborough County,
works with growers daily in west central
Florida's strawberry production hub.
That's good news as Florida's growers
enter a new season. Strawberry growers
in states including South Carolina,
Maryland, Virginia and California are
reaping the benefits of SAS.
The fruit packs a powerful economic
punch nationwide and in the Sunshine
State, bringing in $2.3 billion to the
national economy and $300 million a year
to Florida, according to UF/IFAS research.
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A 2014 UF/IFAS study suggested the
value of SAS at $1.76 million in lowered
fungicide spraying for anthracnose and
$890,000 for botrytis over a 10-year period.
" The system has been valuable to
growers in that it reduces the number of
times they have to spray, and consequently
the risk for selection of resistant strains "
Peres said. " Thus, cost savings for
growers are substantial. In addition, it
has potential environmental and health
benefits since residues on fruit are much
lower. Dr. Fraisse and his team have
been crucial for the development of a
user-friendly system that has been widely
adopted by growers, and I am proud of this
recognition from the WMO. " FGN
UF/IFAS researchers Natalia Peres and Clyde Fraisse developed the Strawberry Advisory
System, a web-based tool that's helping strawberry growers spray their crops at the
appropriate times. Photo: UF/IFAS
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February 2021

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of February 2021
