Israel’s Agrolan Ltd. is offering a new insect trap that actually sends pictures to a mobile device. It comes with an app that lets farmers monitor the device in action and get early warnings as to any threat of an infestation in their fields.
Its makers explained that having gotten used to getting pictures of family and friends sent to their mobile devices instantaneously they got the idea to do the same thing with bugs.
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Flying insects are the greatest enemies of the farmer. They can destroy an entire season’s worth of crops and ruin the farmer’s livelihood.
The conventional method to detect the presence of pests is by use of a pheromone trap. The sex pheromone of the female insects attracts the male insects. Traditionally the tracking of these traps is done manually and farmers must go out into their fields in order to inspect them physically. In Israel there are currently over 10, 000 ordinary traps, most operated by the Ministry of Agriculture and Citrus Fruits Plants Board and they require a great deal of time and manpower to monitor.
The Golan Heights based Agrolan company markets advanced insect traps that include four internal cameras that photograph the captured insects and transmit the data in real time to a Web site. Farmers can get the information wherever the traps are located using a personal computer or a smartphone app. If need be they can go to the area infected or send someone there to take the appropriate action.
Judah Glickman, CEO Agroln, said, “the computer system can identify many bugs added to it from the previous image taken and see if any harmless insects were captured. It provides opportunities for farmers to make notations and sketches and to upload the data on a Google Map to get a broad picture. They can receive real-time data and once a week, as is the case now when they personally check the traps, identify the arrival of insects to quickly take care of them before they cause any severe and irreversible damage.”
Agrolan’s advanced insect trap will be displayed by the company at its booth at the Arava Agricultural Exhibition to be held from January 28-29 at Yair together with many other innovations that save water and fertilizers in agriculture, weather forecasting and more.
