Monitoring Argentine Ant populations

By Tim Hammerich | California Ag Today |

CA AG TODAY - The Argentine Ant is a problem in citrus orchards and vineyards mostly because it protects sap-sucking pests from natural predators. Entomologist Dr. Mark Hoddle and his team at UC Riverside have created a tool to help farmers more effectively manage these ants based on the fact that the like to move on irrigation pipe.

Hoddle… “So what we have done is working with computer engineers here at UCR, we've developed infrared sensors. The sensors clip onto the irrigation pipe. And as the ants moved back and forth along this pipe, and each time they break the beam, the little computer chip in here records, number of ants that are moving along the pipe.”

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