Sebastian Raubach

The James Hutton Institute

Projects

Project Lead: Sebastian Raubach
Plant health is a major issue worldwide with many different pests and diseases threatening different plant-based sectors, e.g. forestry, agriculture, environment and horticulture. Keeping up to date with such threats has always been a major task in terms of pest and disease identification, geographic spread, monitoring and coordinating responses etc. yet, in the world of mobile technology, we now have an opportunity to achieve some of these things from apps on our phones. Questions around the use of such technology include: What options are available in terms of mobile technologies for plant health?; What is their primary purpose?; Who are they targeted towards - farmers, plant health professionals, citizen scientists etc? Are they accurate and reliable? Do they provide real time information to a central database?; Who uses such a database?; Which sectors are they designed to work in or are they cross sector?; Do they have global use or are they limited to certain geographic regions? A review of such technologies is needed to ascertain which are most appropriate for use in Scotland across a range of sectors, which could be further adapted to achieve this aim and, if further development is required, what are the key elements of such a technology that would need to be incorporated into such a mobile application?

Impact: Improved risk assessment; better equipped stakeholders and government plant health officials; improved coordination of plant health activities in Scotland.

Publications

Forestry, Horticulture, Agriculture, Environment | Final Report and Policy Document

The use of mobile technology to enhance plant health monitoring and awareness in Scotland

August 2019

The aim of the project was to review existing websites and smartphone apps currently available and applied in the plant health sector and to assemble a detailed overview covering the following points:

  • What options are available in terms of mobile software applications for plant health?
  • What is their primary purpose?
  • Who is the target audience (growers, plant health professionals, citizen science, …)?
  • Which plant health sectors do they cover?
  • Are they reliable and accurate?
  • Is information submitted to a central database? If so, how is this information used?
  • Could they be used globally, or are they limited to certain geographic regions?