Pest surveillance protects Australia’s position as an exporter of agricultural products by detecting pests earlier and providing supporting evidence for the absence of biosecurity threats.
In Western Australia, the Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development (DPIRD) created the MyPestGuide™ Reporter app and other support tools to engage the community in pest surveillance.
The tools were developed following a Grains Industry Biosecurity Forum held in 2012 which concluded that pest surveillance and understanding of the impact of grains pests at the time was inadequate.
Laura Fagan, Development Officer with DPIRD and MyPestGuide™ project manager said since the app was launched in 2015, the MyPestGuide™ team of experts has reviewed, responded to and verified over 55 thousand reports.
“Over this time the app has helped in the early detection of more than 22 new exotic pests, five being new exotic pests to Australia,” she said.
Laura said growers and industry can benefit by using the reporting tools available and engaging with their communities to report pests locally.
“We developed these free tools to encourage everyone to participate in reporting observations of common, interesting or suspect exotic pests,” she explained.
“All MyPestGuide™ community reports are used to support claims of freedom from certain pests and diseases which help to maintain Australia’s access to overseas markets and build access to new ones.
“For example, the app was used during the National Science Week activity ‘Pantry Blitz’ for two years to demonstrate area freedom in WA from Khapra beetle (Trogoderma granarium), a serious pest of stored grains.”
DPIRD successfully used the MyPestGuide™ Reporter app for other public science activities, such as the Biosecurity Blitz School Challenge.
It has also been used during several biosecurity incidents where the public surveyed their local community for pests including Russian wheat aphid, Citrus canker, Queensland fruit fly and brown marmorated stink bug.
As well as the Reporter app, the MyPestGuide™ family of apps includes identification field guides for pests and diseases of grains crops and includes decision tools such as SnapCard for spray management and CropScout for monitoring and managing aphids in canola.
For more information about MyPestGuide™ visit www.agric.wa.gov.au/pests-weeds-diseases/mypestguide and DPIRD’s mobile app centre www.agric.wa.gov.au/appcentre