Optical fibre enlisted in fight against deadly beetle

Statista estimates the global date palm industry to be worth $18bn by 2023 but this market is being undermined by the red palm weevil, a flying beetle said to cause millions of dollars of economic losses worldwide. Optical fibres wrapped around date palm trunks could help detect the flying foe by listening out for the sound of it eating.

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The red palm weevil feeds on and lays its eggs inside date palms but by the time weevil infestation causes visible signs of distress in the trees, it is too late to save them, said KAUST research scientist, Islam Ashry.

“Several methods are currently used to detect red palm weevil infestation, but they are not reliable or feasible in large palm farms,” he said in a statement. These methods include using sniffer dogs, screening trees with computer-based tomography, and inserting sound probes into a tree’s trunk to detect the munching sounds of weevil larvae.