Skip to contents

Introduction to {epicrop}

{epicrop} provides an R package of the ‘EPIRICE’ model as described in (Savary et al. 2012), the modified EPIRICE model as described in (Kim et al. 2015), the ‘EPIWHEAT’ model as described in (Savary et al. 2015) and a generic SEIR model function, seir(), for modelling crop disease epidemics. The model uses daily weather data to estimate disease intensity. A function, get_wth(), is provided to simplify downloading weather data via the {nasapower} package (Sparks 2018) and predict disease intensity of five rice diseases using a generic SEIR model (Zadoks 1971) function, seir().

For ‘EPIRICE’, default values derived from the literature suitable for modelling unmanaged disease intensity of five rice diseases, bacterial blight (bacterial_blight()); brown spot (brown_spot()); leaf blast (leaf_blast()); sheath blight (sheath_blight()) and tungro (tungro()) and two modified by Kim et al. (2015), (modified_kim_leaf_blast() and helper_modified_kim_sheath_blight()), are provided. The modified Kim versions provide leaf blast and sheath blight models that include additional weather parameters and modified equations to better reflect disease progress under certain environmental conditions on the Korean Peninsula. The ‘EPIWHEAT’ model includes two wheat diseases, leaf rust (leaf_rust()) and septoria tritici blotch (s_tritici_blotch()), with default values derived from the literature suitable for modelling unmanaged disease intensity of these diseases.

Using the package functions is designed to be straightforward for modelling rice disease risks, but flexible enough to accommodate other pathosystems using the seir() function. If you are interested in modelling other pathosystems, please refer to (2012) for the development of the parameters that were used for the rice diseases as derived from the existing literature and are implemented in the individual disease model functions.

Getting started

Load the library.

Get weather data

The most simple way to use the model is to download weather data from NASA POWER using get_wth(), which provides the data in a format suitable for use in the model and is freely available. See the help file for naspower::get_power() for more details of this functionality and details on the data (Sparks 2018).

# Fetch weather for year 2000 season at the IRRI Zeigler Experiment Station
wth <- get_wth(
  lonlat = c(121.25562, 14.6774),
  dates = c("2000-01-01", "2000-12-31")
)

wth
## Key: <YYYYMMDD>
##        YYYYMMDD   DOY  TEMP  TMIN  TMAX  RHUM  RAIN     LAT      LON
##          <IDat> <int> <num> <num> <num> <num> <num>   <num>    <num>
##   1: 2000-01-01     1 24.38 22.85 27.46 91.25 14.93 14.6774 121.2556
##   2: 2000-01-02     2 24.28 22.68 27.42 90.88  6.96 14.6774 121.2556
##   3: 2000-01-03     3 23.82 22.17 26.96 88.36  2.28 14.6774 121.2556
##   4: 2000-01-04     4 23.68 21.90 27.14 88.00  0.87 14.6774 121.2556
##   5: 2000-01-05     5 24.11 21.54 28.18 88.12  0.43 14.6774 121.2556
##  ---                                                                
## 362: 2000-12-27   362 24.46 22.90 26.28 92.49 21.15 14.6774 121.2556
## 363: 2000-12-28   363 24.64 23.32 27.28 91.92  6.01 14.6774 121.2556
## 364: 2000-12-29   364 24.58 22.51 27.90 90.79  5.49 14.6774 121.2556
## 365: 2000-12-30   365 25.31 22.84 28.84 86.25  2.07 14.6774 121.2556
## 366: 2000-12-31   366 24.47 21.63 28.63 87.83  3.45 14.6774 121.2556

Predict bacterial blight

All of the helper family of functions work in exactly the same manner. You provide them with weather data and an emergence date, that falls within the weather data provided, and they will return a data frame of disease intensity over the season and other values associated with the model. See the help file for seir() for more on the values returned.

# Predict bacterial blight intensity for the year 2000 wet season at IRRI
bb_wet <- bacterial_blight(wth, emergence = "2000-07-01")
summary(bb_wet)
##      simday           dates                sites            latent      
##  Min.   :  1.00   Min.   :2000-07-01   Min.   :  0.00   Min.   : 0.000  
##  1st Qu.: 30.75   1st Qu.:2000-07-30   1st Qu.: 16.28   1st Qu.: 0.000  
##  Median : 60.50   Median :2000-08-29   Median : 64.21   Median : 1.000  
##  Mean   : 60.50   Mean   :2000-08-29   Mean   : 57.02   Mean   : 3.744  
##  3rd Qu.: 90.25   3rd Qu.:2000-09-28   3rd Qu.: 98.22   3rd Qu.: 5.080  
##  Max.   :120.00   Max.   :2000-10-28   Max.   :100.00   Max.   :18.014  
##    infectious        removed         senesced        rateinf            rlex  
##  Min.   : 0.000   Min.   : 0.00   Min.   : 0.00   Min.   :0.0000   Min.   :0  
##  1st Qu.: 1.000   1st Qu.: 0.00   1st Qu.: 0.00   1st Qu.:0.0000   1st Qu.:0  
##  Median : 6.838   Median : 1.00   Median : 1.00   Median :0.0000   Median :0  
##  Mean   :17.062   Mean   :12.88   Mean   :13.39   Mean   :0.5348   Mean   :0  
##  3rd Qu.:34.146   3rd Qu.:19.56   3rd Qu.:21.82   3rd Qu.:0.6962   3rd Qu.:0  
##  Max.   :53.168   Max.   :61.49   Max.   :62.04   Max.   :4.0939   Max.   :0  
##    rtransfer         rremoved         rgrowth    rsenesced         diseased    
##  Min.   :0.0000   Min.   :0.0000   Min.   :0   Min.   :0.0000   Min.   : 0.00  
##  1st Qu.:0.0000   1st Qu.:0.0000   1st Qu.:0   1st Qu.:0.0000   1st Qu.: 1.78  
##  Median :0.0000   Median :0.0000   Median :0   Median :0.0000   Median :37.14  
##  Mean   :0.5348   Mean   :0.5125   Mean   :0   Mean   :0.5170   Mean   :33.68  
##  3rd Qu.:0.6962   3rd Qu.:0.6962   3rd Qu.:0   3rd Qu.:0.6962   3rd Qu.:64.18  
##  Max.   :4.0939   Max.   :4.0939   Max.   :0   Max.   :4.0939   Max.   :64.69  
##    intensity           lat             lon       
##  Min.   :0.0000   Min.   :14.68   Min.   :121.3  
##  1st Qu.:0.0178   1st Qu.:14.68   1st Qu.:121.3  
##  Median :0.3602   Median :14.68   Median :121.3  
##  Mean   :0.4158   Mean   :14.68   Mean   :121.3  
##  3rd Qu.:0.7351   3rd Qu.:14.68   3rd Qu.:121.3  
##  Max.   :1.0000   Max.   :14.68   Max.   :121.3

Plotting using {ggplot2}

The data are in a wide format by default and need to be converted to long format for use in {ggplot2} if you wish to plot more than one variable at a time.

Wet season sites

The model records the number of sites for each bin daily; this can be graphed as follows.

dat <- pivot_longer(
  bb_wet,
  cols = c("diseased", "removed", "latent", "infectious"),
  names_to = "site",
  values_to = "value"
)

ggplot(data = dat,
       aes(
         x = dates,
         y = value,
         shape = site,
         linetype = site
       )) +
  labs(y = "Sites",
       x = "Date") +
  geom_line(aes(group = site, colour = site)) +
  geom_point(aes(colour = site)) +
  theme_classic()
Site states over time for bacterial blight. Results for wet season year 2000 at IRRI Zeigler Experiment Station shown. Weather data used to run the model were obtained from the NASA Langley Research Center POWER Project funded through the NASA Earth Science Directorate Applied Science Program.
Site states over time for bacterial blight. Results for wet season year 2000 at IRRI Zeigler Experiment Station shown. Weather data used to run the model were obtained from the NASA Langley Research Center POWER Project funded through the NASA Earth Science Directorate Applied Science Program.

Wet season intensity

Plotting intensity over time does not require any data manipulation.

ggplot(data = bb_wet,
       aes(x = dates,
           y = intensity * 100)) +
  labs(y = "Intensity (%)",
       x = "Date") +
  geom_line() +
  geom_point() +
  theme_classic()
Wet season disease intensity over time for bacterial blight. Results for wet season year 2000 at IRRI Zeigler Experiment Station shown. Weather data used to run the model were obtained from the NASA Langley Research Center POWER Project funded through the NASA Earth Science Directorate Applied Science Program.
Wet season disease intensity over time for bacterial blight. Results for wet season year 2000 at IRRI Zeigler Experiment Station shown. Weather data used to run the model were obtained from the NASA Langley Research Center POWER Project funded through the NASA Earth Science Directorate Applied Science Program.

Comparing epidemics

The most common way to compare disease epidemics in botanical epidemiology is to use the area under the disease progress curve (AUDPC) (Shaner and Finney 1977). The AUDPC value for a given simulated season is returned as a part of the output from any of the disease simulations offered in {epicrop}. You can find the value in the AUDPC column. We can compare the dry season with the wet season by looking at the AUDPC values for both seasons.

bb_dry <- bacterial_blight(wth = wth, emergence = "2000-01-05")
summary(bb_dry)
##      simday           dates                sites            latent     
##  Min.   :  1.00   Min.   :2000-01-05   Min.   :  0.00   Min.   : 0.00  
##  1st Qu.: 30.75   1st Qu.:2000-02-03   1st Qu.: 25.50   1st Qu.: 0.00  
##  Median : 60.50   Median :2000-03-04   Median : 64.45   Median : 1.00  
##  Mean   : 60.50   Mean   :2000-03-04   Mean   : 58.57   Mean   : 3.13  
##  3rd Qu.: 90.25   3rd Qu.:2000-04-03   3rd Qu.: 97.56   3rd Qu.: 4.81  
##  Max.   :120.00   Max.   :2000-05-03   Max.   :100.00   Max.   :21.80  
##    infectious        removed         senesced        rateinf            rlex  
##  Min.   : 0.000   Min.   : 0.00   Min.   : 0.00   Min.   :0.0000   Min.   :0  
##  1st Qu.: 1.000   1st Qu.: 0.00   1st Qu.: 0.00   1st Qu.:0.0000   1st Qu.:0  
##  Median : 8.491   Median : 1.00   Median : 1.00   Median :0.0000   Median :0  
##  Mean   :14.181   Mean   :12.42   Mean   :12.85   Mean   :0.4471   Mean   :0  
##  3rd Qu.:28.857   3rd Qu.:21.71   3rd Qu.:21.71   3rd Qu.:0.3144   3rd Qu.:0  
##  Max.   :40.572   Max.   :51.11   Max.   :51.11   Max.   :7.0252   Max.   :0  
##    rtransfer         rremoved        rgrowth    rsenesced        diseased     
##  Min.   :0.0000   Min.   :0.000   Min.   :0   Min.   :0.000   Min.   : 0.000  
##  1st Qu.:0.0000   1st Qu.:0.000   1st Qu.:0   1st Qu.:0.000   1st Qu.: 2.452  
##  Median :0.0000   Median :0.000   Median :0   Median :0.000   Median :34.553  
##  Mean   :0.4471   Mean   :0.426   Mean   :0   Mean   :0.426   Mean   :29.734  
##  3rd Qu.:0.3144   3rd Qu.:0.000   3rd Qu.:0   3rd Qu.:0.000   3rd Qu.:53.122  
##  Max.   :7.0252   Max.   :7.025   Max.   :0   Max.   :7.025   Max.   :53.933  
##    intensity            lat             lon       
##  Min.   :0.00000   Min.   :14.68   Min.   :121.3  
##  1st Qu.:0.02447   1st Qu.:14.68   1st Qu.:121.3  
##  Median :0.34238   Median :14.68   Median :121.3  
##  Mean   :0.36664   Mean   :14.68   Mean   :121.3  
##  3rd Qu.:0.55330   3rd Qu.:14.68   3rd Qu.:121.3  
##  Max.   :1.00000   Max.   :14.68   Max.   :121.3

Dry season intensity

Check the disease progress curve for the dry season.

ggplot(data = bb_dry,
       aes(x = dates,
           y = intensity * 100)) +
  labs(y = "Intensity (%)",
       x = "Date") +
  geom_line() +
  geom_point() +
  theme_classic()
Dry season site states over time for bacterial blight. Results for dry season year 2000 at IRRI Zeigler Experiment Station shown. Weather data used to run the model were obtained from the NASA Langley Research Center POWER Project funded through the NASA Earth Science Directorate Applied Science Program.
Dry season site states over time for bacterial blight. Results for dry season year 2000 at IRRI Zeigler Experiment Station shown. Weather data used to run the model were obtained from the NASA Langley Research Center POWER Project funded through the NASA Earth Science Directorate Applied Science Program.

The AUDPC values can be viewed directly from the attributes of the data.table outputs above, but we can also create a small helper function to extract them.

# Dry season
get_audpc(bb_dry)
## [1] 43.49663
# Wet season
get_audpc(bb_wet)
## [1] 49.39145

The AUDPC of the wet season is greater than that of the dry season. Checking the data and referring to the curves, the wet season intensity reaches a peak value of 100% and the dry season tops out at 100%. So, this meets the expectations that the wet season AUDPC is higher than the dry season, which was predicted to have less disease intensity.

References

Kim, Kwang-Hyung, Jaepil Cho, Yong Hwan Lee, and Woo-Seop Lee. 2015. “Predicting Potential Epidemics of Rice Leaf Blast and Sheath Blight in South Korea Under the RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5 Climate Change Scenarios Using a Rice Disease Epidemiology Model, EPIRICE.” Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 203 (April): 191–207. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agrformet.2015.01.011.
Savary, Serge, Andrew Nelson, Laetitia Willocquet, Ireneo Pangga, and Jorrel Aunario. 2012. “Modeling and Mapping Potential Epidemics of Rice Diseases Globally.” Crop Protection 34 (April): 6–17. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cropro.2011.11.009.
Savary, Serge, Stacia Stetkiewicz, François Brun, and Laetitia Willocquet. 2015. “Modelling and Mapping Potential Epidemics of Wheat Diseases—Examples on Leaf Rust and Septoria Tritici Blotch Using EPIWHEAT.” European Journal of Plant Pathology 142: 771–90. https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:254474961.
Shaner, Gregory, and Robert E. Finney. 1977. “The Effect of Nitrogen Fertilization on the Expression of Slow-Mildewing Resistance in Knox Wheat.” Phytopathology 67 (8): 1051–56.
Sparks, Adam. 2018. nasapower: A NASA POWER Global Meteorology, Surface Solar Energy and Climatology Data Client for R.” Journal of Open Source Software 3 (30): 1035. https://doi.org/10.21105/joss.01035.
Zadoks, JC. 1971. “Systems Analysis and the Dynamics of Epidemics.” Phytopathology 61 (6): 600–610.