Wageningen UR Greenhouse Horticulture is working on a method for early detection of the longhorn beetle in wood and in living plant material. Research showed good results of a combination of X-ray images with image analysis via new vision techniques. The technique will be developed further for application in practice.
Two very harmful longhorn beetle species are considered as quarantine organism in the Netherlands. These longhorn-beetles originate from Asia and may be present in materials such as wooden packaging materials. The chance of the longhorn-beetle escaping from packaging material, and thus the chance of settlement in the Netherlands, increased considerably as result of the increasing trade with countries such as China.
Around Mid December 2009 trees infested by the East Asian longhorn beetle were found in Boskoop. This was the reason for destroying everything in a radius of one hundred metres around the infested trees. And at the end of January 2010 a buffer zone with a radius of two kilometres was established around the place where the insect had been found. There are two hundred holdings in this area with at least one of the seventeen plant species in which the longhorn beetle can reproduce. Inspections have meanwhile, however, shown that longhorn beetles are no longer present in the area. But alertness remains required.
Detection
“A preliminary investigation shows that it is possible to scan suspected objects by means of X ray imaging and thus automatically detect boreholes. These images are then analysed by means of special software for image recognition. This enables quantification of the extent of infestation,” explains scientist Roel Jansen. “This technique can, after further development, in principle be used for inspection purposes. After our preliminary investigation we now wish to establish the feasibility of detection equipment for several types of wood and for other types of infestation.”
Jansen conducts this research in cooperation with Willem Jan de Kogel (PRI), Hans Helsper (PRI) and Henk Jalink (WUR Greenhouse Horticulture). The next steps the group wishes to make concern the development of equipment for use in the field and the further development of the current equipment now already used at airports. The research is financed by the Dutch Ministry of LNV (Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality).