The European corn borer is a serious pest but most corn growers can’t accurately identify it until the damage is done. The adult corn borer is a beige moth that, according to a recent study, most farmers can’t distinguish from other moths found in their fields. But farmers are all too familiar with the look of the corn borer larvae — a caterpillar that can devour corn.
Placing traps is a common way for farmers to assess the number of the moths in the fields. This allows farmers to choose the best time to control pests, whether they are using insecticidal sprays or the release of beneficial organisms (usually parasitic wasps). Timing is key to find the balance between controlling the pests before the population explodes but not wasting time and money (and incurring an additional environmental cost of ineffectual chemicals) by spraying too early.
Researchers found a way to help farmers accurately identify the European corn borer: Scan the wings using a desktop scanner and compare the result to an image online using specialized software. When wings of similar-looking moths caught in light traps were scanned, the corn borer moth was accurately identified in 97% of cases.
Source: Semiautomated Identification of European Corn Borer (Lepidoptera: Crambidae). Ł. Przybyłowicz, M. Pniak and A. Tofilski. Journal of Economic Entomology. 2015. pp. 1–5.
- Janet Wallace