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AI-Powered Pest Control Pilot Project
Context: 18 farmers were chosen for a groundbreaking pilot project by the Central Institute for Cotton Research (CICR) under the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR).
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- This project utilises cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) for real-time pest monitoring.
- By deploying AI-powered pheromone traps, CICR aims to empower farmers with the information needed to make timely pest management decisions.
Key Highlights:
- The pilot program focuses on three major cotton-growing districts in Punjab: Muktsar, Bhatinda, and Mansa.
- The project will be expanded to Rajasthan and Haryana after the successful pilot in Punjab.
- In the last three years, cotton crops in Punjab, Haryana, and Rajasthan have faced severe PBW attacks, even affecting the genetically modified Bt Cotton (Bollgard II). This pest has caused an average yield loss of 20-25%.
Cotton Crop
- Season: Kharif (matures in 6-8 months)
- Temperature: 21-30°C (hot, sunny climate, frost-free period of 210 days)
- Rainfall: 50-100 cm (warm and humid conditions preferred)
- Soil: Medium to heavy (ideally black cotton soil)
Pioneering AI for Pest Control:
- Pheromone traps, containing the pheromone gossyplure (a chemical emitted by female moths to attract male moths), have long been used to reduce crop pests.
- Farmers typically install five pheromone traps per hectare and monitor the activity of male moths.
- New digital traps have cameras that take pictures of trapped insects and transmit them to a cloud server.
- If the moth population exceeds the economic threshold level (ETL), farmers take necessary pest control measures.
Benefits:
- It provides timely pest management advice for cotton growers.
- Efficient pest control keeping damage below ETL.
- Accessible information for various stakeholders (farmers, scientists, extension officers).
Challenges:
- Regular monitoring is difficult, especially with other Kharif crops to manage.
- Farmers faced issues with the exact timing and extent of pest attacks.
- Manual monitoring every few days often resulted in missing infestations, causing significant crop damage.
About Pink Bollworm (Pectinophora gossypiella): It is a small, grey moth with pink-banded white caterpillar larvae.
- Origin: Native to Asia, but widespread.
- Diet: Larvae feed on cotton bolls, damaging lint and seeds.
- It thrives in higher temperatures, necessitating better pest management amidst climate change.
- Impact: It destroys parts of the developing cotton fruit, such as the square (flower bud) and the boll (sac of seeds with cotton fibres) and has posed a serious threat to the cotton crop and farmers’ livelihoods.
- Global Threat: Found in cotton-growing regions worldwide, causing yield losses of up to 25% in some areas.
- Control Methods: Insecticides, mating disruption, sterile male release (successful in eradicating the pest from the continental US).
- Challenge: Resistance to Bt cotton in some regions (e.g., India).
- Importance: Requires integrated pest management due to its invasive nature and significant damage to cotton crops.