Following the successful launch of the synergies with STELLA and NextGenBioPest, FORSAID has now found a new collaborator in Cerberus. Part of the same call for research projects under the Horizon Europe programme, the two initiatives share a common focus on technology-driven pest identification and management. This makes them well-placed to enhance each other’s efforts in pursuit of a new standard for plant health across Europe.  

More specifically, Cerberus is a partnership between 13 organisations from 4 European countries. Together, they intend to explore the benefits of early detection for six pest species, showcasing how pesticide use can be reduced in favour of intelligent spraying with lower intensity rates. The project will pursue this objective through a combination of large-scale crop observation models, proximal sensing from smart insect traps, robot-based monitoring and citizen science. In that sense, data from multiple sources will be gathered in a cloud platform to support the development of risk maps and customised spraying recommendations for users.

In relation to the synergy Cerberus and FORSAID will maintain, several key points of convergence between them are notable:

• a common selection of tree stressors from remote sensing

• the integration of smart traps in user-centred solutions

• the implementation of an early detection strategy beyond the localised level that is rooted in citizen science

These commonalities have the potential to improve the two projects’ respective research outputs and public outreach via a consistent exchange of expertise throughout their shared implementation period. Be on the lookout for the first steps along that path in the coming months.