Challenges of dose-response studies for meeting desired efficacy levels of phytosanitary treatments

Dose-response studies using probit models to find a dosage for disinfesting commodities of invasive species to meet efficacy standards are ubiquitous in the phytosanitary literature. Although these models may conceivably identify a dose requirement under ideal conditions, data from the literature often suggest poor fitting models that imply conditions are not ideal. In this paper, we identify common aspects of dose response designs in the phytosanitary literature that present challenges for producing good estimates of a required dose.