Agricultural losses to pest represent an important challenge in a global warming scenario. Intercropping is an alternative farming practice that promotes pest control without the use of chemical pesticides. Here we develop a mathematical model to study epidemic spreading and control in intercropped agricultural fields as a sustainable pest management tool for agriculture. The model combines the movement of aphids transmitting a virus in an agricultural field, the spatial distribution of plants in the intercropped field, and the presence of `trap crops' in an epidemiological Susceptible-Infected-Removed (SIR) model. Using this model we study several intercropping arrangements without and with trap crops and find a new intercropping arrangement that improves significantly pest management in agricultural fields respect to the commonly used intercrop systems.
@article{arxiv.1903.05043,
title = {Mathematical modeling for sustainable aphid control in agriculture via intercropping},
author = {Alfonso Allen-Perkins and Ernesto Estrada},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1903.05043},
year = {2019}
}