Completed project
Citrus industry biosecurity preparedness strategy (CT20006)
This project strengthened the Australian citrus industry’s preparedness for exotic pest threats through the CitrusWatch program.
Completed project
Implementation of RapidAIM: Real-time monitoring for the presence and location of fruit fly (ST16009)
Publication date: January 18, 2019
Delivery Partner: CSIRO
© 2026 Horticulture Innovation Australia Limited.
This investment demonstrated the full-service offering of ‘RapidAIM’ in five fruit-growing regions across Australia. RapidAIM technology is a smart-trap solution capable of detecting and locating Queensland fruit fly and Mediterranean fruit fly in real-time.
The technology is comprised of a grid of instrumented, low-powered smart traps with patented sensors that detect behavioural fingerprints of fruit flies. Alerts of presence and location are sent instantly to end-users via the cloud and the RapidAIM app.
The project team validated that RapidAIM technology can be used as an accurate smart trap surveillance solution that supports on-farm monitoring, early detection of the pest and supports area freedom. The project took place over two phases, which are outlined in further detail below.
First phase
In the first phase of the project, the use of RapidAIM was investigated in relation to certification of area freedom and early detection of fruit fly species, specifically Mediterranean fruit fly and Queensland fruit fly who are high priority pests of market access concern.
RapidAIM was rolled out in five fruit-producing regions of Australia including Shepparton (Victoria), Hobart and Huon Valley (Tasmania), Adelaide (South Australia), Orange (NSW) and Donnybrook (WA).
In pest-free areas, RapidAIM was shown to reduce time checking traps by more than 90 per cent. Extrapolating this saving to 12 months for 3000 traps was shown to reduce total annual time checking and maintaining fruit fly traps by 80 per cent.
User evaluations showed that the majority of growers were ‘highly likely’ to have more informed conversations with their crop advisors when using RapidAIM, that spray applications would be more targeted, and that RapidAIM would give them confidence that their fruit fly control was working.
RapidAIM will assist growers, biosecurity officers and communities achieve area-wide management of fruit fly, and state agencies achieve cost-effective and efficient fruit fly surveillance.
Second phase
This phase set out to further evaluate RapidAIM traps, as well as the traditional Lynfield traps, under different fly densities and different compositions of fly species endemic to Australia. The results of this project suggest that the traps perform to their specifications, early detection and population estimation, and provide invaluable information about fly movement, hot-spots, and the influence of management actions.
This project was funded by Hort Innovation using levies from strategic funds