Meta-Analysis of Yield Response of Hybrid Field Corn to Foliar Fungicides in the U.S. Corn Belt

The use of foliar fungicides on field corn has increased greatly over the past 5 years in the United States in an attempt to increase yields, despite limited evidence that use of the fungicides is consistently profitable. To assess the value of using fungicides in grain corn production, random-effects meta-analyses were performed on results from foliar fungicide experiments conducted during 2002 to 2009 in 14 states across the United States to determine the mean yield response to the fungicides azoxystrobin, pyraclostrobin, propiconazole + trifloxystrobin, and propiconazole + azoxystrobin. For all fungicides, the yield difference between treated and nontreated plots was highly variable among studies. All four fungicides resulted in a significant mean yield increase relative to the nontreated plots (P \u3c 0.05). Mean yield difference was highest for propiconazole + trifloxystrobin (390 kg/ha), followed by propiconazole + azoxystrobin (331 kg/ha) and pyraclostrobin (256 kg/ha), and lowest for azoxystrobin (230 kg/ha). Baseline yield (mean yield in the nontreated plots) had a significant effect on yield for propiconazole + azoxystrobin (P \u3c 0.05), whereas baseline foliar disease severity (mean severity in the nontreated plots) significantly affected the yield response to pyraclostrobin, propiconazole + trifloxystrobin, and propiconazole + azoxystrobin but not to azoxystrobin. Mean yield difference was generally higher in the lowest yield and higher disease severity categories than in the highest yield and lower disease categories. The probability of failing to recover the fungicide application cost (ploss) also was estimated for a range of grain corn prices and application costs. At the 10-year average corn grain price of $0.12/kg ($2.97/bushel) and application costs of $40 to 95/ha, ploss for disease severity \u3c5% was 0.55 to 0.98 for pyraclostrobin, 0.62 to 0.93 for propiconazole + trifloxystrobin, 0.58 to 0.89 for propiconazole + azoxystrobin, and 0.91 to 0.99 for azoxystrobin. When disease severity was \u3e5%, the corresponding probabilities were 0.36 to 95, 0.25 to 0.69, 0.25 to 0.64, and 0.37 to 0.98 for the four fungicides. In conclusion, the high ploss values found in most scenarios suggest that the use of these foliar fungicides is unlikely to be profitable when foliar disease severity is low and yield expectation is high

The rationale and design of the perindopril genetic association study (PERGENE): A pharmacogenetic analysis of angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor therapy in patients with stable coronary artery disease

Background: Angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors reduce clinical symptoms and improve outcome in patients with hypertension, heart failure, and stable coronary artery disease (CAD) and are among the most frequently used drugs in these patient groups. For hypertension, treatment is guided by the level of blood pressure. In the secondary prevention setting, there are no means of guiding therapy. Prior attempts to target ACE-inhibitors to those patients that are most likely to benefit have not been successful, mainly due to the consistency in the treatment effect in clinical subgroups. Still, for prolonged prophylactic treatment with ACE-inhibitors it would be best to target treatment to only those patients most likely to benefit, which would considerably lower the number needed to treat and increase cost-effectiveness. A new approach for such "tailored-therapy" may be to integrate information on the genetic variation between patients. Until now, pharmacogenetic research of the efficacy of ACE-inhibitor therapy in CAD patients is still in a preliminary stage. Methods: The PERindopril GENEtic association study (PERGENE) is a substudy of the EUROPA trial, a randomized double-blind placebo-controlled multicentre clinical trial which demonstrated a beneficial effect of the ACE-inhibitor perindopril in reducing cardiovascular morbidity and mortality in 12.218 patients with stable coronary artery disease (mean follow-up 4.2 years). Blood tubes were received from patients at the beginning of the EUROPA trial and buffy coats were stored at -40°C at the central core laboratory. Candidate genes were selected in the renin-angiotensin-system and bradykinin pathways. Polymorphisms were selected based on haplotype tagging principles using the HapMap genome project, Seattle and other up-to-date genetic database platforms to comprehensively cover all common genetic variation within the genes. Selection also took into consideration the functionality of SNP's, location within the gene (promoter) and existing relevant literature. The main outcome measure of PERGENE is the effect of genetic factors on the treatment benefit with ACE-inhibitors. The size of this pharmacogenetic substudy allows detection with a statistical power of 98% to detect a difference in hazard ratios (treatment effect) of 20% between genotypes with minor allele frequency of 0.20 (two-sided alpha 0.05). Conclusion: The PERGENE study is a large cardiovascular pharmacogenetic study aimed to assess the feasibility of pharmacogenetic profiling of the treatment effect of ACE-inhibitor use with the perspective to individualize treatment in patients with stable coronary artery disease

A Coordinated Effort to Manage Soybean Rust in North America: A Success Story in Soybean Disease Monitoring

Existing crop monitoring programs determine the incidence and distribution of plant diseases and pathogens and assess the damage caused within a crop production region. These programs have traditionally used observed or predicted disease and pathogen data and environmental information to prescribe management practices that minimize crop loss (3,69). Monitoring programs are especially important for crops with broad geographic distribution or for diseases that can cause rapid and great economic losses. Successful monitoring programs have been developed for several plant diseases, including downy mildew of cucurbits, Fusarium head blight of wheat, potato late blight, and rusts of cereal crops (13,36,51,80)

Forecasting Pseudocercosporella herpotrichoides foot rot of winter wheat

The use of fungicides for the control of foot rot of winter wheat, caused by Pseudocercosporella herpotrichoides (Fron) Dei., requires a forecast of disease risk to optimize this management practice ecologically and economically. Foot rot occurs in both the mild, wet (100+ cm, ppt./year) annual cropped areas in western Oregon, and the drier (25-50 cm. ppt./year) summer-fallowed areas in eastern Oregon, that have colder winters and warmer summers. Adaptation to the wide range of conditions was examined to deter mine the need for considering ecotypic variation in a forecasting scheme. Although there were isolate differences, no in vitro growth patterns at 5-30°C on KC1 or mannitol osmotically-amended media were indicative of ecotypic variation. The forecasting data base, collected in 1979-80 and 1980-81, included climatological, geographic, agronomic and pathological factors for 39 commercial wheat fields from eastern and western Oregon. The best predictor of end-of-season disease severity from data collected by mid-season, when fungicide applications are made, was the following multiple regression equation: proportion severely infected tillers = -1.08 + 0.04 RSF + 0.20 SDEPTH -0.05 RSPACE where: RSF was a rain score from Sept. to Feb., which relates new infections with amount of daily precipitation; SDEPTH was seeding depth; and RSPACE was row spacing. The variables correspond with macroclimate of new infections (RSF) and microclimate important to disease development (seed date and row space). The model explained 74 percent of the variation in mean disease severity for eastern Oregon-grown Stephens wheat. Several diseases, especially take-all caused by Gaemannomyces graminis var. tritici, confounded foot rot assessments for western Oregon sites and rain score data exceeded values in the model; thus the model was not applicable to western Oregon sites. Minimum yield losses, expected for particular levels of disease severity, were determined as a reference to severity forecasts. Significant (P ≤ .05) yield losses occurred at intervals of approximately 15 percent (10-20) and followed the relationship: percentage yield loss = -1.96 + 0.44 SF where: SF was the percentage of severely infected tillers. Analysis of individual-tiller yield components showed that under conditions of abundant moisture and no lodging, P. herpotrichoides reduced the number of kernels, per head, even with concurrent Septoria spp. head infections that affected both mean kernel weight and number of kernels per head

Driving Digital Transformation: An Investigation of Roadmapping Approaches and an Illustrative Case Study

Digital Transformation is becoming a topical issue for all enterprises around the globe. It remains unclear which feature differentiates roadmap approaches and which are the main differences in their application. To fill this gap, we propose a multi-dimensional framework attempting to put order in the current digitalization roadmap literature and allowing future research to be better contextualised. We also applied some roadmap methods in real case studies to identify the main characteristics of the digitalization roadmap approaches, to show the practical differences that exist between different approach classes, and to suggest some dimensions for comparing them