Lesion distribution, multiple infection, and the logistic increase of plant disease

P E Waggoner; S Rich

doi:10.1073/pnas.78.6.3292

Lesion distribution, multiple infection, and the logistic increase of plant disease

Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1981 Jun;78(6):3292-5. doi: 10.1073/pnas.78.6.3292.

Authors

P E Waggoner¹, S Rich

Affiliation

¹ Department of Plant Pathology and Botany, The Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station, New Haven, Connecticut 06504.

Abstract

The lesions of few of the 112 observed cases of plant disease were randomly distributed; most were fitted by the negative binomial function with exponent approximately 1. The proportion of healthy hosts generally equaled the frequency of zero in the negative binomial. The same course of an epidemic is calculated for the logistic increase of infected plants or for plants infected by propagules produced in proportion to lesions and distributed with exponent equal 1.