PestNet is an online service that provides pest and disease identification and management advice for the South Pacific and Asia. A PestNet team of moderators set up a Yahoo group platform in December 1999 to provide supervised email communication regarding pest, disease and other queries, often with photograph attachments. Other community members can respond to these requests, providing a possible identification or diagnosis. Currently, PestNet includes other regions and has over 1500 members.

The Lucid team was initially involved with PestNet to provide technical support to improve the PestNet database. This led to support for the development of the Lucid Mobile app, Pacific Pests & Pathogens [Android] [iOS]that provides numerous Fact sheets on pests and diseases for most of the crops grown in the South Pacific region. There are currently 350 Full Fact Sheets, 350 Mini Fact sheets (summarised for farmers and growers) and another 50 being prepared for the next update of the Android and Apple versions of the app.

The latest collaboration between PestNet and Identic has been to upgrade the PestNet platform, taking advantage of recent software and hardware developments to achieve a more efficient and effective PestNet communication system. Identic has been sub-contracted to do the technical component of this work as part of a project managed by the University of Queensland and funded by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR). The upgrade involves a data repository and two apps: one for desktop computers and the other for Android and Apple mobile devices.

The screen shot above shows several filtered Identification requests, as viewed online by a PestNet moderator, showing “Delete”, “Approve” and “Edit” buttons. The last submission has been expanded, showing text and three images, which were automatically thumb-nailed during the submission process. The larger size is viewed by clicking on the thumbnail.

These two screen shots (below) show two request submissions as they appear when viewed in the new PestNet app.

The online version of the new PestNet platform is operational, and can be accessed here. The Android and Apple apps will be released early next year.

As well as providing more effective and flexible support for the functions that PestNet has provided in the past, features of the new online core repository provide automated data processing functionality, including non-response alerts, the potential for incorporating pest alerts and pest reports, and providing links to distribution maps and translation services.

If you would like to join PestNet visit https://app.pestnet.org/