Field validation of digital insect traps for monitoring lepidopteran pests in orchards
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G. Krawczyk, B. L. Lehman, J. Park, L. A. Hull
Pages: 47-51
Abstract: Automation of insect trapping and monitoring has the potential to significantly reduce associated manual labor costs needed for traps maintenance. During last few seasons we evaluated an automated pest detection system using bio-impedance-based electronic sex pheromone prototype traps (Z-Trap) to monitor various lepidopteran pests in fruit orchards. The evaluations were aimed at determining the accuracy and reliability of traps, wireless communication system and the functionality of a web-based user interface program. Each Z-Trap was deployed with a corresponding standard large plastic delta (LPD) trap placed nearby to compare the numbers of captured moths. All traps were rotated on a weekly basis to eliminate location related variability of moth captures. Regular pheromone traps generally captured higher cumulative numbers of moths than the Z-Traps. However, the overall capture trends between both types of traps were reasonably consistent throughout the season. Unfortunately for some Z-traps, the reported detections were considerably higher than the actual moth captures observed in the collection containers (false positive).