Connected monitoring of beetles during grain storage to prevent proliferation

Abstract: Monitoring infestations in stored grains is essential to reduce the proportion of
treated batches with insecticide residues and to protect consumers health. This practice makes possible to detect the main species of insect pests in storage and to identify them. Thus, a curative treatment will only be applied to batches that are really infested, and whose infestation cannot be controlled by other methods. ARVALIS – Institut du Végétal (Boigneville, France), Sparkling Partners (Lille, France) and Javelot (Wasquehal, France) have developed a connected insect trap to overcome the constraints that explain the low use of traps in stored grain batches. This trap, equipped with a camera above the tank, allows the user to follow the captures remotely via photographs listed on an online application. For 6 months, 19 grain bins were equipped with several of these connected traps in France. Catches in the trap tanks were monitored monthly and grain samples were taken at each visit to compare the two detection methods and to validate the technology under real conditions. Different insect species were surveyed: soft wheat, barley, and maize. Trap monitoring detected an average of three additional insect species compared to direct sampling. The predominant species on the sites surveyed were Sitophilus oryzae, Oryzaephilus surinamensis and Cryptolestes spp. ARVALIS – Institut du Végétal constructed a decision tree allowing the operator to evaluate the degree of risk of development of infestations according to the species trapped and the temperature of the grains nearby the trap.