A prototype of the BioTIC HLB Web Portal -INTA FONTAGRO- was presented by videoconference on May 26, 2020, which will make available early alerts of pests and diseases in the area of influence of the FONTAGRO lots (demonstration and conventional) to family growers and other actors in the sector.
The alerts will arise from the analysis of the systematic monitoring carried out on the FONTAGRO lots located in family citrus establishments at 16 citrus production sites in Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and Bolivia. In each "site”, potential recipients are gathered in a list (containing growers and other relevant actors). Alert messages will be available periodically on the recipients' cell phones or, they may access though the Web portal. There will be multimedia resources (videos, photos, newsletters) alluding to alerts, in addition to other training, and recommendations for integrated pest management according to calendar. In addition, immediate contact with professionals working in each site or region for feedback is possible.
Silvana Giancola, researcher at INTAs Center for Research in Economics and Prospective studies, leader of the FONTAGRO project referred to the launching of the alert system as "strong instruments for the escalation of integrated management technology in citrus (IPM), taking into account the advance of HLB and other pests with strong impact on the sector,
Alerts will be tailored to each project site, she also emphasized on " the need to leave a legacy: rising awareness of monitoring for decision-making, use of less aggressive plant protection products for population and natural enemies of the HLB vector (Diaphorina citri) and other pests, and the importance of bio-inputs, among other attributes of IPM ”.
Armando Taié, Corrientes Agricultural Experiment Station, from the National Institute of Agricultural Technology (INTA), IT manager for the implementation of the new alert system, said that this portal is an outcome of years of work at INTA (Frutic, Biotic as antecedents) currently supported by the FONTAGRO HLB project, which aims to adapt and disseminate HLB vector control in an IPM context. In this sense, he stated, “the Biotic INTA portal was designed to translate technical information for growers in each citrus area, therefore the synergy with the FONTAGRO project was instantaneous.”
He informed that after a first phase which comprise communication and training instruments on the Web portal, already explained by Silvana Giancola, systematization of monitoring and field notebooks among FONTAGRO lots is planned, which will make possible to perform temporal analysis at each site and cross-sectional analysis at the 16 sites on the platform.
System must allow alert posting by each region leader and present multimedia resources following key words on the alert text.
