Counting Insects

Automatic Insect Counter

Several years of work at NMSU have led to the development of a system that solves the insect counting problem and also includes the beneficial complex in the insect management decision process in field and orchard crops. The system is designed to Insectavac sample, separate, count, and classify insects by computer. Presently eight genera of beneficial and phytophagous insects can be counted in a short period of time using a neuro-fuzzy system for insect classification which has an average 0.5% misclassification rate.

Second Generation Insect Identification

Leading the effort at to improve surveillance of native and foreign/invasive insect species is Dr. Jeffrey Drake on loan to USDA from NASA. Building upon the foundational research of the Biological Control Laboratories and using advanced digital imaging hardware, analysis and pattern recognition techniques, we are developing software based systems that can rapidly identify insects from large field samples.

Streamlining Data Acquisition

A hand held data recorder has been developed to record various field data such as PNC trap counts, compound leaf counts, weather sensor data etc. Trigger levels or thresholds can be set in the device and standardized for a given landmass. A field man can record a year's worth of data in a spreadsheet on one device. Data can be transferred to a PC via either modem or IR instantly.