FruitFlyNet-ii uses new technologies to support farmers in their fight against fruit and olive flies

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Theodoros Tsiligiridis

The 26th of September 2023 was the second day of the 4th (final) Consortium Meeting of the FruitFlyNet-ii project. It focused on the Decision Support Algorithms (DSSs) and the e-services implementation and progress, for both, the olive fruit fly, and the Medfly control. The DSSs developed in the project allow the use of algorithms to help farmers to take decision on when, where, and how a spraying must be applied against each of the two pests. They are based on the Integrated Pest Monitoring (IPM) rules in the control of each pest including crop and pest monitoring and produce maps and guidance. The advances in the integration of the local approaches in a unified DSS was discussed and useful outcomes were reached. Based on them, in the next period DSSs algorithms will be modified aiming the different DSSs among the Mediterranean countries to be integrated in one to facilitate decision making applicable in all countries.

The advances in Location Aware System (LAS) e-services were presented by Agricultural University of Athens (AUA) team. Implementation of e-services already developed was explained with examples per site. New e-services for field digitization or the selection of trap positions in a field were presented too. In the previous period the geodatabases of all partners were corrected so that to be possible their integration. This was achieved and now all partners can collect field data with the mobile GIS from their orchards, upload the crop and pest monitoring data and then receive automatically maps of the data uploaded, statistics and pest risk maps produced by the geodatabase. Therefore, at this stage the partners can receive from the system all the information they need to control the target pest using LAS. All partners agreed that this was a major achievement for the aims of the project. 

The day was ended with the 8th Project Board and Steering Group Meeting that worked on the final steps to follow up to the closure of the project.