The PestNet app

The PestNet app

When crop pests and diseases occur…

When crop pests and diseases occur, farmers want help and advice immediately. They don’t want to wait, and in many cases, they cannot wait. Unless they act quickly, the crop could be ruined.
This App gives extension staff and lead farmers all the information they need to treat the crop. If there is no way of saving a crop, the steps should help to prevent the problem from occurring in the future. You will be able to find your pest, disease or weed in this APP.
Once you find your pest, disease or weed, find a Fact Sheet to tell you about the symptoms, lifecycle, impact and management. There are Mini Fact Sheets available to give you a summary of the pest, disease or weed that you might find helpful. Mini Fact Sheets of the most common pests and diseases have been translated into local languages for several countries.

The menu…

Launch the interactive key to find your pest, pathogen or weed — Pacific Pests, Pathogens & Weeds menu 

There are three ways to use the App. Choose any of the following to:

You can also view:

View the online app

Identify Pests, Diseases and Weeds

On a computer, choose ‘Identify Pests, Diseases and Weeds’ and the LUCID key will appear, divided into four windows. This provides you with ways of reducing the list of possible pests or diseases causing your problem.

  • CLEAR THE APP: First click the Restart button (left button at top of the four windows with opposing arrows).
  • CHOOSE A FEATURE: There are 5 choices: Crops, Trees, Ornamentals, Non-crop habitats, and Insects. 
    • choose which one is appropriate. For example:
    • click Crops — this opens an alphabetic list of crops. 
    • choose a crop by ticking a box — look at the top right window to see the list of fact sheets for the selected crop
    • collapse the list (click on Crops) — your choice is in the left window below 
    • now, go to the next question. 
  • CHOOSE A CAUSE: There 3 three choices: Biotic, Abiotic, Other.
    • choose which one is appropriate — for example: 
    • if a living organism (an insect, pathogen, weed, etc.), click BIOTIC and make a choice
    • if non-living, click on ABIOTIC, and make a choice
    • if unknown, click OTHER
    • collapse the list. Your choice is on the left window below
    • Now, go to the next question.
  • CHOOSE A LOCATION: Where is it?. There are 3 choices: Above ground, Below ground; On water.
    • choose which one is appropriate
    • collapse the list — your choice is on the left window below
    • now go to the pesticide issue, if appropriate.
  • CHOOSE A PESTICIDE ISSUE: There are 5 choices.
    • choose which one is appropriate.

Throughout this search process you can see the fact sheets matching your selections in the window to the top right. The windows below keep a tally on the Features Chosen (below left) and the Entities Discarded (below right) as you make your choices.

Once you have your selections in Entities Remaining (top right), choose those that match your problem and review.

If you are using a phone or tablet, the sequence is the same, except the Restart button is at the top right of the screen. Results of your searches appear at the bottom of the screen:

  • Features: The 4 categories: Choose a host, Choose a cause, Choose a location, Choose a pesticide issue. Tap each and make a choice. Close the categories between choices
  • Selections: Tap on selections to see your choices
  • Remaining: Tap to see a list of possibilities for review

Open Identify Pests, Diseases and Weed screen 

Click on Crops

Choose a Crop

Fact Sheets

Full fact sheets

Choose ‘Full Fact Sheets’ and a list of available fact sheets is displayed alphabetically. Clicking the image opens the images only; clicking on the text icon opens the fact sheet, and clicking on the thumbnail opens the gallery of images for that fact sheet.

Each fact sheet is divided into several sections: common and scientific names, distribution, hosts, symptoms and life cycle, impact, and management. Version 12 of the App contains 555 fact sheets.

Note that each fact sheet can be searched, printed and saved as a PDF. Also, at the top of each fact sheet you can toggle between full and mini fact sheets or return to the login page.

Visit Full Fact Sheets

Mini Fact Sheets

Choose ‘Mini Fact Sheets’ and you will have summaries of full fact sheets, and similar, search, print and PDF options.

Remember that you can go to the Pestnet Community at any time to search the database or make a submission. Just click (computer) or tap (mobile) on ‘Pestnet’.

Visit Mini Fact Sheets
Example of a Mini Fact Sheet 
Full Fact Sheet list
Example of a Full Fact Sheet 

Find out more…

For more information on using the online PestNet app, select from the following activities:

What’s new 2023

In version 12, we again concentrate on common weeds. Eleven are weeds and seven of them are from Micronesia, although they also occur elsewhere in the Pacific islands and beyond. We thank Konrad Englberger, previously with the Pacific Community, for his help in this, especially for sharing images. Among the nine remaining new fact sheets, we have three on insects, two on fungi, two on viruses, one on a bacterium, and one on a nematode. 

All are in Oceania, except for the Tomato brown rugose fruit virus. 

In total there are 555 fact sheets. And as we said in v11 the task now is to keep up to date by adding information to those already in the app., and to be on the lookout for new introductions, and emerging local pests, pathogens and weeds.

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In version 11, we have added 10 common weeds suggested by Fiji. We have looked to the horizon again and added several pests, mostly diseases, that are not yet in the region but are nearby; these include some nasty bacterial diseases of bananas and a potentially devastating fruit fly. Pests of root crops have been a focus, irrespective of whether they are already in the region, nearby or far. These include a ‘mixed bag’ of diseases caused by fungi, nematodes, phytoplasmas and viruses, and complete our world survey of major pests of important root crops. Finally, we include a further six insect pests, all from within the region, and a fact sheet on developing an Insecticide Resistance Management strategy.

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A new feature since Version 10 is access to the PestNet Community. This community network helps people anywhere in the world obtain advice and information on plant protection. PestNet users include crop growers, extension officers, researchers, and biosecurity personnel. PestNet was started in 1999 by the same people who developed PPP&W, so putting the two together was thought to be a good idea! You can access PestNet from the main page of the App or the bottom of every fact sheet. Once in Pestnet, you can filter for articles from the Internet, pest images sent for identification, or requests for advice. You can even filter for fact sheets!

You can view all the PestNet submissions without joining, but we ask you to join the PestNet Community if you want to post a submission or reply to one. This is to stop malicious automatic bots from interfering with our network. You can join by registering an active email address or via social media.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank ACIAR, the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research for providing support to Pestnet to develop the App. It has done so under a sub-regional IPM project for Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga and Vanuatu (HORT/2016/185). We thank Identic Pty Ltd., (www.identic.com.au), creators of Lucid and Fact Sheet Fusion for publication of the App.

Software used

Lucid v4 was used to construct and manage the diagnostic key.

Fact Sheet Fusion v2.05.191 was used to manage the images and data and create fact sheets for both the web and mobile application.

The Pacific Pests, Pathogens, Weeds & Pesticides app (Android and iOS) was created via the Lucid Mobile Platform.

For more information on these tools please visit https://www.lucidcentral.org

Download the app mobile now.