Advanced Technology Program & ISCA INVEST $2,718,000 INTO MORITOR FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF A FULLY AUTONOMOUS PEST MONITORING AND CONTROL SYSTEM.

ATP & ISCA partner for the development of a fully autonomous pest monitoring and control system that integrates recent advances in insect behavior manipulation and sensor technologies with information technologies into a highly automated pest management program that will drastically reduce the time it takes to detect to the presence of pest and vectors of diseases and respond with appropriate management actions. The development of this automated system will have repercussion in areas beyond agriculture, such as in early detection and alarm of presence of bio-terrorism agents and monitoring and control of vectors of disease, such Dengue and West Nile Disease vectors. This system will transform the way pest management works from remedial to preventative

Damage caused by agricultural pests is estimated at $300 billion annually, or 30-40 percent of potential global food, fiber, and feed products. The present rate of increase in yield is much less than required to meet projected increases in food demand. To date, agricultural pest management techniques lack the data collection technologies needed to improve crop yields. Farmers currently rely on time-consuming, manual pest management methods that often come too late to prevent pest infestations. Present methods entail costly blanket spraying of insecticides on entire farms, which is inefficient, ecologically harmful and conducive to the development of pesticide resistance.
   ISCA Technologies, Inc. (Riverside, CA) is further developing an integrated pest management system (known as the Moritor System) to effectively control pests and minimize environmental damage: instantaneous field data acquisition and analysis will automate detection and treatment of pest outbreaks. Field traps with data loggers, optics, acoustics, and pressure sensors will allow the precise identification of captured insects and tracking of their populations in real time. A wireless network of traps, sensors, and actuators will transmit a continuous, orderly stream of data to a centralized internet database that determines pest activity, density, and location; it will also deliver the necessary pest management actions and evaluate their effectiveness. Powerful geographical and statistical tools will mine this large database, conceivably revealing patterns that would otherwise be too elusive to detect. The result will be the generation of a new knowledge base in the field of pest management. This technology can be extended to both the detection and control of insects vectoring medically important diseases and the very real threat of bio-terrorism. That is, the widespread use of the Moritor System in agricultural and urban settings would allow for the instantaneous flagging of suspect trends and activities. Technical risks involve the variety of pests that must be identified, successful automation and integration of the various technologies, and the potentially low compliance of farmers' scheduled activities. Benefits include elimination of unnecessary insecticide spraying, reduced environmental contamination, decreased overhead cost to farmers, higher quality food, and increased production. Collectively, these benefits will help farmer cooperatives, commodity markets, the FDA, the EPA and the consumer.
   Moritor currently employs handheld devices to gather field data. This funding allows us to further integrate [recent] advances in insect behavior manipulation and sensor technologies with information technologies into a highly automated pest management program that will drastically reduce the time it takes to detect to the presence of pest and vectors of diseases and respond with appropriate management actions. This system will transform the way pest management works from remedial to preventative" reports Dr. Agenor Mafra-Neto, CEO of ISCA Technologies.
The investment will immediately create eight new high paying jobs at ISCA, with the potential, as commercialization of the fully automated system starts, of injecting substantially more capital into, and creating and new jobs in, the Inland Empire region," point out Annlok Yap CFO of ISCA Technologies.
About ISCA Technologies, Inc.

The traditional pest management solution for most growers is based on the premise that when in doubt, spray," and they often spray with conventional insecticides. Frequently, treatments are scheduled on a calendar basis and deployed independent of the pests presence in the field. Consequently, potent insecticides are losing their efficiency, requiring more frequent sprays with more concentrated materials. Three principal problems have been associated with this constant use of conventional insecticides to control insect pests:

•   Firstly, many insecticides have been removed from the market because of their toxic effects and concerns about their residues on food for human consumption and the environment. In the United States, all insecticides registered prior to 1984 had to be re-registered with the Environmental Protection Agency by 1997, with a high percentage of insecticide labels never complying and subsequently dropped from the market.
•   Secondly, the use of insecticides has resulted in the development of insecticide-resistance by a number of important pest insects. Consequently, farmers have countered by increasing the frequency of pesticide applications using more concentrated materials, different classes of insecticides or different agricultural practices altogether.
•   Thirdly, conventional insecticides often deplete populations of beneficial insects that control secondary pests in many crops. When these beneficial insects are removed, additional pest-control problems arise.

ISCA's development of natural and pheromone based tools provides a complete solution to these traditional insecticide related problems. The mission of ISCA is to provide cost-effective, environmentally friendly and integrated pest management solutions that do not have the harmful side effects of many conventional pest management techniques that rely on insecticides. Located in Riverside, California, ISCA is a successful corporation that provides novel pest control strategies for agricultural and urban applications. ISCA develops, manufactures and markets a wide range of environmentally friendly products comprised of 150 pheromone lures and more than 20 different types of traps. ISCA lures are made with the highest quality components available, carefully purified, and optimized for maximum longevity. Its tailor made dispensers can be readily produced in quantities from one to several million. The cost-effective traps created by ISCA are based on data obtained from a multitude of laboratory and field tests designed to optimize trap catch.
ISCA Technologies, Inc. is also heavily involved with research. It is developing integrated pest management (IPM) protocols to control pests and has ample experience with insect pest monitoring programs, monitoring technology, behavioral assays, and data analysis.
Using ISCAs patented agricultural information system -- the Moritor® System, field data is collected with handheld or automated devices, sent to an internet accessible centralized database, where it is parsed, stored and analyzed to generate reports which identify alarm situations and predict pest population densities. The Moritor System facilitates and significantly reduces the time to scout, report and make decisions on the deployment of pest control measures in the field from days or weeks to hours. The Moritor System enables targeted and environmentally friendly pest management practices - the right pesticides and quantity, at the exact location, at the right time, specifically tailored to the customers needs.
ISCA has also been awarded funding from the National Science Foundation and the United States Department of Agriculture for the research and development of its innovative and environmentally-friendly solutions to pest management.

About the NIST Advanced Technology Program
The Advanced Technology Program (ATP) bridges the gap between the research lab and the market place, stimulating prosperity through innovation. Through partnerships with the private sector, ATPs early stage investment is accelerating the development of innovative technologies that promise significant commercial payoffs and widespread benefits for the nation. As part of the highly regarded National Institute of Standards and Technology, the ATP is changing the way industry approaches R&D, providing a mechanism for industry to extend its technological reach and push out the envelope of what can be attempted. Technology research in the private sector is driven by todays global, economic realities. The pace of technological change is faster than ever before, and victory goes to the swift. These realities force companies to make narrower, shorter-term investments in R&D that maximize returns to the company quickly. The ATP views R&D projects from a broader perspective -- its bottom line is how the project can benefit the nation. In sharing the relatively high development risks of technologies that potentially make feasible a broad range of new commercial opportunities, the ATP fosters projects with a high payoff for the nation as a whole -- in addition to a direct return to the innovators.