**8.7. Development of methodology for tracking of major pests and diseases**

The foremost step of spatial forewarning of pests and diseases is to obtain highly accurate and high spatial-resolution weather products. Different satmet products such as OLR, insolation, UTH, wind vectors and near-surface atmospheric temperature and humidity are available from IMDPS at a resolution varying from 5 to 30 km. These data are being obtained at 30 min to 1 h temporal resolution. Some analysed fields are also being available. Standardisation of these satmet products or analysed fields with reference to in situ surface weather data will be carried out to adapt these to develop alarm zone for major candidate pests and diseases.

The work is initiated in mustard crop for Alternaria blight and Aphid, SATMET product (LST, SpH and sunshine hour/rainfall) near-surface (2–3 m) utilised for weekly progress of pest (incl. diseases) infestation, and then tracking the pest (incl. diseases) through a suitable growth model can be attempted. In this study, growth model is constructed for tracking of pest (incl. diseases) infestation on mustard crop with the combination of remote-sensing information. Hyper-spectral data using spectroradiometer in field and remote-sensing approach in reflectance for many continuous narrow wavelength bands in visible–near infrared (VNIR) and short-wave infrared (SWIR) region of electromagnetic spectrum are used for the detection and growth of Alternaria and aphid infestation in mustard crop within a year. Different spectral indices like NDVI, RVI, AI, SIPI, and so on are calculated for the identification of Alternaria infection and aphid infestation or stress on crop using remote-sensing.
