MODELLING THE EFFECTS OF TUTA-ABSOLUTA ON TOMATO PLANTS
Keywords:
Tuta Absoluta, fumigation, equilibria, stabilityAbstract
A deterministic model is proposed and analyzed to study the dynamics of the effects of
Tuta Absoluta on tomato plants. Both qualitative and numerical analyses of the model were
done and the impact of fumigation on the various epidemiological classes was
investigated. Qualitative analysis shows that the model has two equilibria: the disease free
equilibrium (DFE) which is locally asymptotically stable when the effective reproduction
number is less than one, that is, 1 es R and the endemic equilibrium which is locally
asymptotically stable when the effective reproduction number is greater than one, that is,
1 es R . Numerical results suggest that when the rate of fumigation is increased, the yield
is maintained both in the susceptible and fumigated populations while plants that misses
fumigation experiences a drastic yield loss.