After a season’s experience with two different automated camera traps that monitor navel orangeworm, Jim F. Cook likens them to the Distant Early Warning Line established during the Cold War.

“You have a trap 50 miles away and you can look at the contents of the trap right on your phone,” said Cook, who heads research for Colusa County Farm Supply. “You can look at the wave of the population, helping pinpoint actual spray timings, rather than looking at individual orchards. That’s the way I see these things going out regionally rather than more specific.”

During the 2024 season, Farm Supply PCA Gabe Grimmer deployed five FMC traps in northern Sacramento Valley almond orchards. The devices, paired with automated cameras, are part of the manufacturer’s Arc farm intelligence mobile platform. Results can be viewed on a smartphone app or a tablet.

Grimmer also had Semios automated insect camera traps, which provide daily trap photos and moth catch information as well as related data. Users can view the information on a smartphone app or a computer.

Cook said both camera traps provided clear images, trap-catch data as numbers and graphs, and degree-day accumulation. Where they differ is in their lures, photograph timing, additional data and size of viewing screen.

“They’re both very good,” he said. “The big question is the ease of use of the app on your phone is a little bit different. Those are design things, so basically, function-wise, they’re pretty much the same, kind of like a Ford versus a Chevy.”

Franz Niederholzer, UCCE orchard advisor in Colusa County, had an FMC trap in an almond orchard in 2023 and 2024. While he viewed the automated device as a helpful tool, allowing users to monitor traps remotely, he said he wouldn’t give up his egg traps.

“I’m so used to egg traps and how the data fits so nicely into the model,” Niederholzer said, referring to biofix. “This adds to the picture, but I’d be very nervous to completely eliminate egg traps in the field.”

Semios Camera Traps

With more than 10,000 automated traps deployed worldwide, Semios, which was recently brought under the Almanac brand, has been in business for 14 years. The bulk of the traps are in the U.S. and target NOW in almonds and pistachios or codling moth in apples and walnuts, said Abi Welch, a Semios entomologist and PCA.

Semios in 2022 converted from a pheromone NOW lure to a nut meal lure, which attracts egg-laying females. The nut meal also can be used in conjunction with mating disruption, which typically shuts down male-only pheromone lures.

Semios uses a roughly 9.6-by-5.5-by-9.5-inch red plastic rectangular trap with a camera housed inside the top portion. A sticky liner is installed at the bottom, with the nut meal lure attached to an interior side.

The Semios traps send their data via radio frequency coupled with a 10-foot repeater antenna placed in the orchard. Users recently gained the option of using cell signals, although they don’t work in all parts of the state.

Each morning about 6 a.m., the camera photographs the sticky liner and sends the image to a central processing computer, Welch said. The early morning timing also coincides with the approximate end of NOW nocturnal flights.

Using artificial intelligence and machine learning, the computer identifies and counts insects in the image with at least 99% accuracy. Machine learning involves computer algorithms that compare images in the trap to known ones in a library for identification. The more images the computer views, the more it “learns.”

Any insects that can’t be identified by machine learning are handled by humans.

Results, including liner images and pest counts, are sent by 4 p.m. the same day. The data also is reported in easy-to-understand graphs so users can view possible trends.

Users can set pest pressure alerts based on blocks or individual traps to be sent to their phones. They also can reference site-specific pest models as well as pest degree-day models and forecasts to fine-tune sprays. The models are based on UC IPM data and recommendations as well as Blue Diamond bloom information. In addition, users can review past seasons’ trap histories.

“We’re hoping this makes them less reactive and a little more proactive,” Welch said.

Cook said he’d also like the ability to view images of NOW eggs and be able to differentiate the white ones (newly laid) from red ones (ready to hatch). Welch said Semios has explored that and found it wouldn’t be feasible with current technology.

Originally, Semios offered the camera traps as a full-service package that included replacing the lures and sticky liners. For the past two years, she said the company has also offered an option where users serviced the lures and sticky liners themselves.

FMC and Its Arc Farm Intelligence App

Since 2022, FMC has slowly rolled out its camera trap coupled with its Arc  farm intelligence mobile platform to select customers, said Erica Rudolph, FMC precision agriculture market development lead, North America.

Resembling a standard delta trap with a small camera mounted on top, FMC’s unit uses components from third-party vendors. Small solar panels provide power throughout the season.

FMC’s traps are designed for pheromone and PPO lures of the user’s choice, she said. Cook said he tried to install a nut meal lure inside the trap, but it blocked the camera.

Depending on the trap provider, images of the sticky liner may be taken at 11 p.m. or early in the morning. Data is sent from the cameras using cellular IoT, or internet of things, which connects sensors to the internet by piggybacking onto mobile networks.

Computers using artificial intelligence and algorithms read the daily images to identify and count NOW moths. Rudolph said accuracy is about 85%, which is similar to the 80%-to-85% accuracy of PCAs and seasonal trap checkers.

“We’re trying to steadily improve on that 85% accuracy,” she said. “There are always going to be natural conditions that will affect the accuracy.”

Results are reported to users numerically as individual trap catches as well as graphed over the season. Based on NOW catches and pest thresholds, results also are color coded on a heat map as green (low risk), yellow (medium risk) or red (high risk). The map includes other users’ trap results although in a way that does not divulge their locations, Rudolph said.

Cook liked the idea of an area-wide heat map and has thought about displaying it on a big-screen monitor in the dealer’s Williams office. Each morning as PCAs come in, they could get a quick glimpse of potential hot spots or other areas that need attention before they head out for the day.

Currently, FMC only offers the results through its Arc farm intelligence app, which is viewed on a smartphone or tablet. But Rudolph said an online version, which could be viewed using a personal computer or displayed on a big screen, is in the works.

For pistachio growers, the Arc platform also provides pest pressure forecasting based on aggregated degree-days and USDA and UC models. Developing a similar forecast for almond is more complicated because hull split is related to bloom, Rudolph said.

Cook said FMC representatives have been receptive to the dealer’s comments, and he planned to put out 20 of their traps in almond orchards in 2025.

While he applauded both companies for the technology, Cook said the cost of using the traps may be a deciding factor for growers.

“We’re on a spray program,” he said. “It’s not if you’re going to spray, it’s when you’re going to spray. Guys will put on three-plus sprays, so that is just more of a timing issue rather than a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ from your traps.”

Welch had similar concerns when walnut and almond prices dropped a few years ago, but she said growers saw the value in the traps, and use has not dropped significantly.

The camera traps may not be the be all and end all of pest monitoring, but Cook viewed them as another tool to make more efficient use of PCAs’ time.

“You can set these traps out on these remote orchards, and you’re not having to drive out there all the time,” Cook said. “It’s counting them for you. It won’t eliminate trips totally, but it will reduce the number of trips.”

Rudolph said she has heard similar comments. “The traps definitely have a potential benefit of saving money in the area of time and labor to check traps. This is especially important for people who are managing a large volume of traps or a large network of traps on a weekly basis. You’re also getting more accurate and consistent data with daily images compared to weekly counts. From a landscape level, you can make more accurate and more timely management decisions.”