Strawberry powdery mildew: “The CCOM model allowed me to better understand when to position which product”

Olivier Perrot, strawberry producer“/>

“When Céline Charles, engineer at Sicolyoffered me in 2021 to be a pilot farmer to test the CCOM model againstpowdery mildew strawberry, I immediately said yes because I didn't feel like I was doing the right thing. This allowed him to validate his tool and for my part to better understand when to position which product. We were also able to realize why the dynamics of disease development was different between my tunnels and my multichapelle. I got to grips with the tool because after two years, instead of waiting for Céline's advice, I managed to choose the right strategy and Céline only validated my choices. In 2023, I was very satisfied because I had very little powdery mildew on the variety Arabella extremely sensitive, which was not the case in other Sicoly operations.

In 2024, on the other hand, it was a disaster because of a change of sprayer in June and the symptoms appeared in July, and powdery mildew then developed uncontrollably. A spray quality defect ruined my entire production. Despite this, my unfortunate experience once again made it possible to verify that the CCOM model was correct, since the symptoms appeared on the dates predicted by the model and were all the more significant as the announced risk index was high. In 2025, I will continue to use this model, because it is a tool that helps me a lot.”