Integrated Pest Management (IPM) is an ecological approach to managing pests in agricultural crops. The main goal of IPM is to reduce the amount of pesticide applications—by providing precise information as to when, where and how much pesticide should be applied—while keeping the pest damage to a minimum. Frequent and reliable monitoring of pest populations is one of the most fundamental components of IPM. Currently pheromone-baited traps densely deployed in the field (e.g., 1 trap per 2.5 acres is recommended for apple orchards in Washington) are used to monitor insect populations. All the time consuming activities involved in manually inspecting these traps on a regular basis­—typically 1-5 times a week depending on the time of the season and pest species—make insect population monitoring currently one of the most laborious and neglected tasks in IPM.

 

 

Spensa Z-Traps offer a novel and cost-effective IPM solution by automating the critical but labor-intensive task of monitoring insect populations. Not only will the Z-Traps eliminate the labor cost, but they will also provide unprecedented real-time, high-resolution insect population information to growers, which will significantly increase the overall effectiveness of IPM.

 

 

 

 

Multiple Z-Traps are deployed in the field (e.g., orchard), each automatically counting the number of target insects captured. The insect population data acquired by individual Z-Traps is transmitted wirelessly and aggregated into the base station. The growers can then access the real-time data via Internet or mobile phones through the Z-Trap Interface.

 

Do you have more questions? Please check out the Z-Trap FAQ page.

 

 

 

 

We have a limited number of Z-Trap prototypess available. If you're interested in puchasing Z-Trap prototypes, please contact us.