On 22nd and 23th of July 2021, the 1st in-person bilateral meeting of the FruitFlyNet-ii project was held in the premises of the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Food sciences of the University of Molise in Campobasso, Italy, between the  Agricultural University of Athens, Greece and University of Molise. The objectives of the meeting were the two partners to have an overview of the progress of the activities and to establish the work plan for the coming months and discuss certain financial and communications issues.

During the first day of the meeting, a first draft prototype of the delta e-trap to be used for the monitoring of the Medfly was presented and its improvement discussed. Solutions of the olive fly e-trap sharing similar configuration although with a different design were also presented. The discussion clarified several issues including electronics of the e-traps and the network topologies, communication protocols etc. to be solved. The process in other implementation activities were also discussed, such as the digitization of the wide-area sites, the implementation of the two wide-area sites, the field experimentation and the Decision Support Systems (Optimization of LAS Prototypes).

The following day, both teams had the opportunity to visit the wide-area site for the OliveFlyNet. This is a 20 hectares olive grove located in an area closed to Larino. The teams discussed with the farmer about the cultivation practices of the field, the severity of the problems caused by the olive fly, the current approaches used in the olive fly control and the farmer expectations of his involvement in the project. Then, the walk in the grove that followed was very helpful for both teams to initiate further discussions on technical issues and obtain a clear view of the characteristics of the field useful in the design of the e-trap network establishment. Next, back in the office, the teams discussed and clarified financial issues whereas prioritized the next steps in the communication activities of the project.

In conclusion, this meeting was a great success to tune the cooperation between the project lead beneficiary and partrner 2 towards the implementation of the current project activities and the production of the e-traps for the timely establishment of the wide-area test sites in all partners' regions. It was an opportunity to share knowledge, experiences and best practices between the partners.

Participants for University of Molise:

Andrea Sciarretta, Professor, Unimol coordinator

Tania Travaglini: Technical Manager

Maria Grazia Calamo: Financial and Communication Manager

Marco Colacci: post-doc researcher

Participants for Agricultural University of Athens:

Theodore Tsiligiridis, Professor, Project Coordinator

Dionysios Perdikis: Assoc. Professor, Technical Manager