3 provinces use light traps to monitor pests on rice
With Quang
Machine by Vietnam Plant Protection Department
Mr. Vu Minh Ngoc, Head of the Plant Protection Station of Hai Hau district, is the person directly assigned to manage and operate the light trap machine. He said the machine weighs about 300kg and costs about 100 million VND. The machine operates on grid electricity and consists of three main parts: an insect-sucking lamp, an automatic drying system, and an electronic semiconductor part.
A type of light trap. (Source: bioted.vn)
When it is dark (around 6pm), the machine will automatically turn on the insect lamp and turn off at 5am the next morning. Insects sucked into the lamp will fall into the hopper under the lamp body. Here, the insects will be dried through a hot drying system with four temperature levels: 15-20 degrees Celsius; 25-35 degrees Celsius; 45-55 degrees Celsius and 60-70 degrees Celsius.
The light trap has a total of 8 numbered insect bags, each day the dried insects will fall into a separate cloth bag. After 8 days, the technician will take the insects out and isolate white-backed planthoppers, small brown planthoppers, leaf rollers, stem borers or biting midges.
The dried samples were soaked in alcohol and then sent directly to the Provincial Plant Protection Department.
According to VNA