FarmSense Provides Detailed Data for Real Time Pest Monitoring

Tim Hammerich

News Reporter

FarmSense, a company hatched out of research at the University of California - Riverside, was recently awarded $2.2 million in SBIR funding for the development of biosecurity measures against native and invasive pests. Cofounder Eamonn Keogh says the company’s FlightSensor technology helps identify insects in real time.

Keogh… “Insects cause lots of problems for growers, and so they need information about which insects are in the field, so they can intervene and control them. FarmSense makes a sensor they place in the field. And when the bugs arrive at the sensor, we can immediately classify them down to the level of sex, species and life stage. This information is pushed to the cloud. The grower can look at it on their iPhone or laptop, and then plan the optimal intervention to control the bad bugs.”

Keogh said the technology is deployed the same way as existing mechanical traps.

Keogh… “So most other technologies out there basically put a small camera facing the sticky trap and take a photograph once a day. In contrast, we're looking at flying live dynamic insects, and we get much, much richer information from this. So most of our rival systems can basically count bugs. We can count, and classify, and tell you the sex, species and the life stage. And that is unique.”

The company is currently focused on specialty crops, but sees applications in other areas as well.