Efficiency demonstration of connected olfactive Trap based on tunable diffusers – EffiTraps

Chemical communication plays a vital role in insects by allowing them to assess their environment and adapt their behavior. Insects use semiochemicals to locate their partners, hosts, natural enemies, competitors, and food sources. They are characterized by an exceptional olfactory performance that allows them to detect minute doses of volatile organic molecules. Some noctuids detect a single molecule of the female sex pheromone. Semiochemicals therefore have the advantage of being used for communicating messages at large mobilizable distances for the benefit of biocontrol. The use of these volatile molecules in crop protection can take many forms of implementation because of the varied nature of the intra- or interspecific interactions targeted. Sexual pheromones are attractants commonly used in insect traps, whether for epidemiological monitoring or massive trapping. It is less traditional to exploit kairomones. These semiochemicals consist of organic molecules of different active molecular weights at very low concentrations in the environment, which complicates their chemical characterization. INRA has developed a strong expertise in this scientific field. In order to enhance this knowledge for the benefit of agriculture, the start-up Agriodor, founded in early 2019, is developing the trapping of the broad bean weevil with kairomones. The research has led to the development of two attractive mixtures respectively effective to mimic the food source and the host of the broad bean weevil, the flower and the pod. Agriodor focuses its efforts on the exploitation of these attractants to develop the massive trapping of the broad bean weevil. The ambition is to limit the damage caused by this pest and thus avoid the use of insecticides problematic for non-targeted insects.
Agriodor's research and development efforts are focused on maturing this biocontrol solution to make it operational and competitive. Work has shown during field trials that the temporal evolution of the passive kairomone diffusion source has a major influence on the attractiveness of the trap. Improvements in the storage matrix of volatile organic compounds have increased the period of effective attractiveness to three weeks. The EffiTraps project aims to change paradigms by moving from the optimization of passive semiochemical diffusers to the development of active broadcasters by mobilizing the skills of Irstea's UMR ITAP in digital agriculture and fluidics. On the one hand, it is a question of taking advantage of the technological developments of the Internet of Things in agriculture and of their increasing appropriation by the agricultural sector and, on the other hand, of the new possibilities offered in the field of micro-fluidics in controllability. microflows to deliver the olfactory signal optimally. The project will seek to demonstrate and quantify the benefits of this approach on adoption prospects and guide subsequent technological developments. The perspectives opened up by this methodological change are: a sobriety of consumption of semiochemical molecules; a better quality of the mixture diffused during the protection period, a reduction in the density of traps necessary at equivalent level of protection, a limitation of the interventions, the workload and the mental load of the farmer. The results specific to the control of faba bean weevils can be subsequently generalized to other semiochemicals and thus contribute more widely to the efficiency of biocontrol methods.