Developments in crop insect pest detection techniques

Early detection of crop insect pests is indispensable to farmers and managers. Researchers are increasing exploration of technology that improves capability to sense insect presence and maximize the timeliness, accuracy, and interpretability of the sensed data for targeted management. Traditional senses of vision, audition, olfaction, touch, and taste are now being augmented with technology sensitive to broad spectral ranges of electromagnetic, substrate, and molecular vibration energy over detection ranges that greatly exceed human capabilities. An example of augmentation is the combined use of sensors and semiochemicals in traps that detect wingbeats of incoming pests and then transmit data to remote computer systems that employ machine learning algorithms to provide near-real-time counts of each species trapped at specific locations and time periods. As their costs have decreased while labor and agricultural input costs have increased, such technologies are becoming important contributors to the success of integrated pest management efforts.