[Thesis defence] 12/12/23: Thomas Pressecq: "Development of a decision-making tool to promote the use of microbial biocontrol" (INRAE Pathologie Végétale, INRAE Ecodéveloppement and APREL)

Title of thesis

Development of decision-making tools to encourage the use of microbial biocontrol

Date and place

12 December 2023, 2pm
at INRAE (Domaine Saint Maurice, 67 All. des Chênes, 84140 Avignon) in the large GAFL room,
as well as by videoconference: https://inrae-fr.zoom.us/j/6164927507

Discipline

Agronomy

Laboratory

INRAE Plant Pathology, INRAE Ecodevelopment and APREL

Management

• Marie-Hélène Robin, Lecturer and researcher,
• EI-Purpan Examiner
• Mr Marc Bardin, Research Director, INRAE Thesis supervisor
• Mr Marc Tchamitchian, Research Director, INRAE Thesis co-supervisor
• Ms Claire Goillon, Director, APREL Thesis co-supervisor
• Mr Philippe Nicot, Research Fellow, INRAE Thesis co-supervisor, Guest
• Ms Aurélie Rousselin, Experimentation officer, APREL Thesis co-supervisor, Guest

Composition of the jury

• Ms Elsa Balini, Senior Lecturer, Institut Agro Montpellier, Rapporteur
• Mr Ivan Sache, Professor, AgroParisTech Rapporteur
• Ms Cécilia Multeau, Partnership and Innovation Officer, INRAE Examiner
• Marie-Hélène Robin, Lecturer and Researcher, EI-Purpan Examiner
• Mr Marc Bardin, Research Director, INRAE Thesis supervisor
• Mr Marc Tchamitchian, Research Director, INRAE Thesis co-supervisor
• Ms Claire Goillon, Director, APREL Thesis co-supervisor
• Mr Philippe Nicot, Research Fellow, INRAE Thesis co-supervisor, Guest
• Ms Aurélie Rousselin, Experimentation officer, APREL Thesis co-supervisor, Guest

Summary of the thesis

The use of microbial biocontrol products as an alternative to plant protection products on market garden crops remains limited, despite legislative and environmental incentives. One of the obstacles is their lack of effectiveness in the field, which is linked to a lack of easily accessible information on the optimum conditions for their use.
This thesis proposes to contribute to the development of a Decision Support Tool (DST) in response to this shortcoming. In the form of articles, it brings together the various elements required to build a DST. Firstly, knowledge of user needs was identified from a survey of field players such as market-gardening farmers and agricultural advisers, the feedback from which was summarised in a publication. A review of available scientific publications on the efficacy factors of microbial biocontrol products was carried out with the aim of analysing the coverage of this information and providing data for a prototype DAT. This literature search revealed the gaps in the information available and the difficulties in deriving recommendations for farmers. The third part of the thesis reports on an experiment specifically designed to determine the efficacy factors of a biocontrol product (AQ10) on a statistical basis. Finally, the last part of the thesis describes the ADO prototype developed by integrating user expectations and data from the scientific literature, and proposing an innovative solution: collecting data directly from users to fill data gaps and prepare advice.

Key words Microbial biocontrol; decision support tool; database