Cherry Leaf Spot

The Model

The Cherry leaf spot model is a direct application of the “Environmental Favorability Index” (EFI) published by Eisensmith & Jones in 1981. An attempt to correlate the Blumeriella ascospore discharge model with meteorological data has failed. (Lindhard and Trapman unpublished). For this reason, the CLS model in RIMpro is a static model, indicating only the conditions of infection without quantifying the potential severity of infection based on spore populations.

In the bar below the graph, dark blue represents the periods when your weather station recorded rain. Light blue is the period when the leaves are wet, based on your records of rain, relative humidity and leaf wetness.

The central graphic indicates infections (in red) by Blumeriella. Infections can be caused by ascospores, micro-conidia, and macro-conidia. Infection events are calculated from the green tip date entered by the user under the local parameters for stone fruits. As the ejection of ascospores is known to be very low below 8° C, the default minimum temperature for the EFI calculation is set at 7° C.