Applications of Percolation Theory to Prevent the Propagation of Phytopathogens and Pests on Plantations

One of the most important problems in agroecology is designing eco-friendly strategies to minimize the propagation of phytopathogens and pests. In this paper, we explore some strategies based on the modification of the plantation configuration together with percolation theory to prevent the propagation of phytopathogens and pests that move over nearest neighbor plants, such as the case of Phytophthora zoospores or pest mites. The percolation threshold is determined for well-mixed and intercropping plantations modeled in nearest neighbor square lattices. Our main result is that the best agroecology strategy consists of designing polyculture plantations to raise the net production yield.