Hamamatsu-Born Technology Used for Fly Control in Palau; Company Wants to Develop ‘Fruit Fly Forecast'
The technology by F.C.C. Co., a motorcycle components manufacturer in Hamamatsu, Shizuoka Prefecture, allows users to quickly analyze the species of several hundreds of thousands of flies collected from various parts of the country and identify the distribution of the flies throughout the island, enabling effective pesticide application.
The fruit flies, which measure 3-5 millimeters in length, are causing the most trouble for the people of Palau. The flies lay eggs on mangoes and other fruits, and the hatched larvae cause serious damage to them.
In 1998, the Palau government launched a nationwide fly eradication campaign to protect the mangoes from these tiny 'invaders,' but the campaign stalled due to budget shortfalls. In 2021, nearly a quarter-century later, Palau sought assistance from Japan, with which it has signed a memorandum of understanding in the agricultural sector.
In response, the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) launched a project to develop a fruit fly control system.
The first step in fly control is to identify the distribution of the three types of fruit flies found in Palau — the mango fruit fly, breadfruit fly and oriental fruit fly — because different pesticides are effective on different types of fruit flies.
JICA set traps at 145 locations in Palau and attempted to capture approximately 300,000 fruit flies every two weeks and classify each one by species and distribution. However, as sorting was done manually with tweezers, one person could only identify 1,000 flies per day.
It was the F.C.C. Production Technology Center's DX group that provided a solution.F.C.C.'s Akinori Tsuchiya, 40, visited Palau on a trip in October 2023 and listened to the JICA staff there speak about the fly control project. He realized that his company's quality inspection technology, which uses artificial intelligence, could be useful.
Tsuchiya and his team made use of a technology originally used to detect distortions in motorcycle parts. They simply put large numbers of flies on a conveyor belt, and the AI automatically analyzed their colors and shapes and quickly compiled data on the distribution of the three fly species. JICA plans to begin drone-based pesticide spraying this autumn based on this distribution data.
Damage caused by fruit flies has been confirmed in Okinawa Prefecture and other areas in Japan. Tsuchiya said, 'If we can analyze the relationship between fruit fly distribution and various factors such as weather conditions and wind direction, it may be possible to create a 'pest forecast' similar to a weather forecast.'
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