“…Both empirical and explanatory simulation models have been developed to predict rice blast in Japan (Uehara et al, 1988;Ishiguro & Hashimoto, 1991), Korea (Choi et al, 1988;Lee et al, 1989;Kim & Kim, 1993), China (Zhejiang Research Group, 1986), Taiwan (Tsai, 1986), Iran (Izadyar & Baradaran, 1990), Egypt (Kamel & El Sharkawy, 1989), India (Manibhushanrao & Krishnan, 1991), Thailand (Surin et al, 1991), and the Philippines (El Refaei, 1977;Calvero & Teng, 1991). However, most of these models have not been used by farmers to manage rice blast because of two plausible reasons: firstly, growers/farmers tend to be risk-aversed on the use of disease forecasting tools (Campbell & Madden, 1990), and secondly, the models may include weather factors (a weather factor is calculated from a weather variable of a specific time scale and/or value, e.g.…”