Linear Modeling of the Impact of Pests and Diseases on the Growth Process of Strawberry Plants in the State Space

 Strawberry is a significant fruit due to its rich sources of vitamins and plenty of antioxidants and grows worldwide. Thus, studies that provide information on topics in strawberry growth are momentous. Strawberry production is often threatened by various pests. Therefore, pest management is one of the most critical points in strawberry cultivation and production that have to be considered. There are several pests that can have detrimental effects on strawberry production. For example, thrips is an important pest for strawberry in a greenhouse condition. There are many ways to deal with greenhouse pests; one of the best ways is to observe greenhouse hygiene and sanitation and use the proper chemical pesticides. Yet, it is impossible to predict the plant's growth stages in the usual ways to predict the time of using chemical pesticides. The time of each growth stage's occurrence can be predicted only by using simulation models and considering the factors affecting plant growth, such as environmental factors, pests, disease, and nutrition. To this end, this study aims to model the growth process of strawberry plants by considering pests and diseases' impact.

 Monitoring the growth stages is a critical component of a successful strawberry growth program. To harvest more, it is vital to develop effective predicting tools. There are several approaches to investigate the change in the size and form of planets based on some growth conditions over time. The best-known mechanism of analyzing the growth process mathematically is simulation modeling. Models can be used as an alternative for statistical analysis of harvest of crops. They enhance the inferences about productive behavior and can be used to evaluate experiments. To introduce a desirable model, it is required to identify the essential features of the growth process, such as environment and climate. In this work, the dynamics of growing strawberry, the evolution of their size in time and their forms are modeled. Meanwhile, the plant's reaction to environmental factors such as pests and effective management factors on the environment and climate created for plant growth is investigated.

 The use of growth models increases the analysis that can be made about the productive behavior of strawberry plants. Moreover, the proposed model has efficiency in predicting plant growth. This model, including simple relationships and the general concept of growth, is useful for teaching, learning, and researching to analyze plant growth factors. Furthermore, the proposed model can study how plants react to environmental factors such as pests and significant management factors on the environment and climate of plant growth. Besides, the model can help scholars, researchers, and plant producers with the ability to predict the amount and manner of plant growth and the effect of changing the number of pests. In this paper, the amount of disease and pests' damage for different rates in the growth stages is shown by using the plant growth process's modeling to reduce the amount of damage caused by pests by predicting the amount of damage and provide applicable, low cost and practical solutions. According to the results obtained in this study, since the lack of pest control causes only four out of ten healthy fruits to reach the full growth stage, control and repel pests are essential.

 From the results of this study, it can be concluded that greenhouse owners and producers can simulate several growing seasons in a matter of seconds and predict the amount of harvest and loss of their crop by considering the environmental information of the area of study in which they decide to plant and knowing the effective rates in the process of plant growth and having a model. The greenhouse owners can predict the number of healthy and infected plants using the desired model before harvest by using the help of horticultural experts, collecting information about their environment, climate, soil, etc., and using different aspects affecting plant growth in the desired area. This approach can be extended to other crops to investigate the treatment effects and the production behavior throughout the crop cycle. Using this method predicts the crop cycle and leads to fruit production in a shorter period because the producer can use pesticides at the right time of production to decrease the damages to pests.