Journal
AGRICULTURE-BASEL
Volume 12, Issue 9, Pages -Publisher
MDPI
DOI: 10.3390/agriculture12091440
Keywords
insect identification; Helicoverpa zea; Chloridea virescens; machine learning; microscope photography; Bt resistance; neural network; precision pest control; insect eggs
Categories
Funding
- Cotton Incorporated, Cary NC [16-418]
- NCSU Biological Sciences Research Assistantship
- Office of Research Infrastructure Programs (ORIP), Office of the Director, National Institutes of Health of the National Institutes of Health
- National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) of the National Institutes of Health [R44OD024879]
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Rapid and accurate insect identification is crucial for pest management and agriculture. This study developed a machine learning approach using a convolutional neural network to identify the eggs of two caterpillar species with over 99% accuracy. By utilizing a multi-camera array microscope and automated image-processing pipeline, a dataset of approximately 5500 images was rapidly constructed for training and testing the network.
Rapid, accurate insect identification is the first and most critical step of pest management and vital to agriculture for determining optimal management strategies. In many instances, classification is necessary within a short developmental window. Two examples, the tobacco budworm, Chloridea virescens, and bollworm, Helicoverpa zea, both have H. zea has evolved resistance to Bt-transgenic crops and requires farmers to decide about insecticide application during the ovipositional window. The eggs of these species are small, approximately 0.5 mm in diameter, and often require a trained biologist and microscope to resolve morphological differences between species. In this work, we designed, built, and validated a machine learning approach to insect egg identification with >99% accuracy using a convolutional neural architecture to classify the two species of caterpillars. A gigapixel scale parallelized microscope, referred to as the Multi-Camera Array Microscope (MCAM (TM)), and automated image-processing pipeline allowed us to rapidly build a dataset of similar to 5500 images for training and testing the network. In the future, applications could be developed enabling farmers to photograph eggs on a leaf and receive an immediate species identification before the eggs hatch.
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