Research project Efficient observation and warning systems for pests of leeks, carrots, chicory and cabbage

Main research question

Vegetable growers in Flanders make crop protection decisions based on information from observation & warning (O&W) systems. To make their decisions as optimal as possible the existing O&W systems are automated and expanded using a community of observers. Because it is impossible to cover the O&W system of all vegetable crops, this project mainly focuses on the outdoor vegetables that are of great economic importance for Flanders and that show a high need for an updated O&W system: leek (onion thrips, Thrips tabaci), carrot (carrot fly, Psila rosae), chicory (chicory leafminer, Phytomyza cichorii) and cabbage (cabbage fly, Delia radicum).

Research approach

The current O&W systems consist of periodically sampling insect traps on multiple plots spread across Flanders, where researchers manually screen these samples for a specific pest. By adding new applications and improvements to O&W systems in a parallel and iterative way, e.g. through automated observations, development of better pest models and use of big data, we will make the functioning of O&W systems faster, more efficient and more performant. We will work with multidisciplinary action labs (within an agile framework) around specific top priority pests.

Relevance/Valorization

Optimization of the O&W systems will result in more efficiency and save time. The development of (semi-)automatic systems will also make it possible to monitor more fields with a higher frequency, so that the monitoring results will give an even more representative image of a given pest for a certain region.

Financing

VLAIO