Prediction of Tomato Early Blight Disease Under Climate Change Conditions in Egypt

Abstract

Early blight caused by Alternaria solani (Ell. and Mart.) is one of the most important diseases, which caused considerable loss in tomato yield and quality under Egyptian conditions. The research aimed to study the relationship between climate change and disease severity for prediction in future seasons. Disease severity was recorded for three growing seasons i.e. summer (May.-Aug), autumn (Jul.-Oct) and winter (Nov.-Mar.), at three governorates (Behira, Ismailia, and Assuit). Severity of early blight disease on tomato has been predicted by regression estimated accumulative disease severity values during (2007/2008)-(2015/2016) season and average max and min temperature and humidity through these seasons. Prediction of disease has been formed as Y= b0+b1x1+b2x2+.......... bqxq. Three models were created to describe the severity disease by multiple regressions (MINITAB® program). The highest value of early blight disease was recorded through season (2017/2018), while the lowest value was recorded during season (2016/2017). Also, highly disease severity was estimated during summer period compared with autumn and winter growing periods, however, the least severity was estimated through winter growing period and moderate severity estimated in the autumn growing period. Influence of environmental conditions on the severity of early blight disease during seasons