A Smarter Way To Monitor Insects In Prairie Crops

A Smarter Way To Monitor Insects In Prairie Crops Insect monitoring in agriculture remains one of the most time-consuming and labor-intensive tasks for growers and agronomists. Traditional scouting requires repeated field visits, significant travel, and hours spent identifying insects and assessing population levels, making effective pest management decisions difficult. While completing an M.Sc. in Entomology at the University of Saskatchewan, Teresa Aguiar-Cordero, co-founder of IPPM Now, recognized this challenge and saw an opportunity to modernize the process. “I realized how much time and effort are required to monitor insects across multiple fields. At the same time, I saw that growers and agronomists needed faster ways to identify insects, understand pest pressure in their area, and make informed management decisions,” Aguiar-Cordero says. She also noticed that beneficial insects, such as pollinators and natural enemies, are often overlooked in monitoring programs. “While growers regularly scout for pests, much less attention is paid to tracking the insects that provide valuable ecosystem services. That’s a major aspect that sets IPPM Now apart from anyone else,” Aguiar-Cordero says. She explains that insects play a vital role in supporting healthy agroecosystems and can influence pest management outcomes. By tracking both harmful and beneficial insects, growers gain a more complete understanding of what is happening in their fields. Aguiar-Cordero’s efforts led to IPPM Now, an AI-powered insect monitoring platform that helps growers identify insects more quickly, understand pest pressure in real time, and make informed management decisions, all while reducing scouting costs and effort. The application boasts more than 90% recognition accuracy. The platform combines two technologies. The first is a visual scouting tool that uses machine learning to identify insects from smartphone photos taken during field inspections. The second is a Smart Trap system that remotely monitors insects captured on sticky rolls, enabling users to collect data without frequent trips to the field. Both technologies run on the same platform, allowing users to manage insect identification and remote monitoring in a single application.  Users can use the app independently for visual scouting and insect identification. If they also have a Smart Trap, they can register and manage it on the same platform, enabling remote monitoring of insect captures and direct data delivery in the app. “Once an insect is identified, the system classifies it as a pest, pollinator or natural enemy,” Aguiar-Cordero says. “For pest species, users receive crop-specific economic threshold information along with integrated pest management recommendations that include cultural, biological and chemical control options.” IPPM Now and the Smart Trap technology are being validated across Prairie crops, including canola, wheat, lentils, faba beans, peas and soybeans, in Saskatchewan, Alberta and Manitoba. The platform continuously collects field data to improve its AI models and builds a larger dataset of insects captured on sticky cards and Smart Trap sticky rolls, improving identification accuracy before activating automated insect detection alerts.  Some field validation also compares Smart Trap captures with conventional sampling methods, such as sweep-net sampling. It has already been trained to recognize many of the region’s major pest insects, pollinators and beneficial predators. The development team is seeking growers, agronomists, researchers and other interested users to participate in the testing phase, test the app, and provide feedback. A beta access link is available on the website. “We’re actively looking for partners interested in working with us on field validation, technology integration, data collection and commercialization.” The platform remains free during validation, with user feedback helping refine its functionality and reliability. After commercialization, IPPM Now plans to offer a free identification and mapping service alongside a premium subscription, priced at approximately $10 CAD per month, which includes advanced alerts, forecasting tools, management recommendations, and data export capabilities. “Our vision has also become clearer as we continue talking with growers, agronomists, researchers and industry partners,” Aguiar-Cordero says. “Rather than simply developing an insect identification app, our goal is to build an integrated insect monitoring and decision-support platform that connects field scouting, remote Smart Trap monitoring, AI-assisted identification, economic thresholds, and science-based pest management information, while also considering beneficial insects such as pollinators and natural enemies.” Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Insect Track Solutions, 15 Innovation Blvd., Suite 230, Saskatoon, Sask. Canada S7N 2X8 (info@ippmnow.com; www.ippmnow.com).

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