Updating and republishing valuable vegetable industry resources (VG12087)
What was it all about?
Many resources, tools and guidance materials have been developed for vegetable growers over the past years, covering topics such as soil health, pest management and postharvest handling. However many are no longer available (having gone out of print), or are no longer relevant because they need to be updated.
This project sought to collate, review and then republish outputs from previous vegetable industry projects with a view to developing a more accessible, updateable format.
A project steering committee reviewed the almost 300 vegetable grower resources that were located. The resources were evaluated and prioritised, with pest, disease and disorder identification guides being identified as highly valuable for growers.
The committee decided that a pest and disease identification app would be a useful next generation source of information for growers. An app has several advantages including:
- It serves as a central repository for a large range of materials
- It can be easily updated to keep information current
- Once developed it is cheap to distribute to growers
- It is easy to search, and potentially offers a range of other interactive features.
The team developed an app, Veg Pest ID, to help growers to identify pests and diseases in crops. It contains a total of 250 individual insect, disease and disorder records, illustrated with over 880 images. It is searchable by pest type, crop type or both, or by keyword. Photographs have been selected to shown different insect life stages and/or severity of symptoms. These can be viewed full screen, with captions, or with some short text describing the pest, its damage or cause.
In addition to the app, five field guides were developed, using some existing information plus new content, including images.
The field guides describe pests, diseases and disorders of:
- Brassica vegetables
- Babyleaf vegetables (new publication)
- Sweetpotato
- Sweet corn
- Carrots, celery and parsley (new publication).
VegPestID and the new field guides have proved extremely popular since their release and evaluation has been very favourable.
ACT NOW
Get the Veg Pes tID app to use on your mobile device
Access the five field identification guides below:
ISBN:
978-0-7341-3580-3
Funding statement:
This project has been funded by Hort Innovation
Copyright:
Copyright © Horticulture Innovation Australia Limited 2015. The Final Research Report (in part or as whole) cannot be reproduced, published, communicated or adapted without the prior written consent of Hort Innovation (except as may be permitted under the Copyright Act 1968 (Cth)).