Seminar - Federico Maggi - A mechanistic model of Flavescence Doree epidemics in vineyards

Wednesday 16 March 2011, 4.00 pm - 5.00 pm
Civil Engineering Conference Room

Dr Federico Maggi
School of Civil Engineering
University of Sydney


Abstract:
Flavescence Dorée (FD) is the most important and damaging phytoplasma disease of grapevine (Vitis vinifera L.). Since its vector, the grapevine specialist leafhopper Scaphoideus titanus Ball, was introduced in Europe from Northern America, epidemics of FD started to occur in areas localized across the 45th parallel, mainly in Southern France and Northern Italy. The Piemonte Region, Italy, is currently severely affected by FD epidemics. This region is the major contributor to the economical value of grape production and wine processing for domestic market in Italy and for the export and, along with the historical oenology tradition, viticulture in Piemonte is a strategic asset with important economical and social implications.

The driving aim of this work is to improve our prediction capability of FD disease dynamics in grapevine. Here, I will present how the following objectives have been addressed: (1) determining the governing equations that best describe the insect vector dynamics (e.g., life stages, longevity, prolificacy, etc.), the interactions between phytoplasma, insect and plant (e.g., latencies, insect mobility, and transmission efficiencies) and the biological response of insect and plant to FD pathogen (e.g., reduced fitness, mortality, recovery); (2) integrating these governing equations into a mechanistic model capable to describe and predict FD epidemics in a generalized context; (3) understanding parameter uncertainty and model sensitivity to the parameters; and (4) analyzing FD epidemics progression curve under scenarios of control operations such as insecticide applications and rouguing of infected plants.


Biography
Federico Maggi was born in Italy, where he obtained his MSc degree in Civil Engineering from the Politecnico di Torino in 1999. He moved to the Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands, where he completed his PhD degree in Environmental Fluid Mechanics in 2005. Next, Federico joined Duke University, USA, for post-doctoral research projects and in 2006 He was awarded an appointment as an outstanding researcher at the University of California, Berkeley. He is currently Guest Scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Since July 2009, Federico joined The University of Sydney.

Federico’s research interests address environmental fluid mechanics, hydraulics and hydrology, biogeochemistry, sediment-water interaction, soil-plant-atmosphere interaction, water and soil quality, and mathematical modeling.