Effectiveness of portable solar-powered light-emitting diode insect trap: Experimental investigation in a groundnut field

[Display omitted] •Portable solar-powered light-emitting diode (LED) insect traps were fabricated.•Insect attraction of UV, blue, green, and red LED traps were tested in a groundnut field.•Spodoptera litura attraction was significantly higher than other insect species.•Trapping efficiency of the UV-LED trap higher than the other coloured LED traps.•Solar LED insect trap could be an instrumental where inconsistent electricity supply. Pest control is a major challenging component in agricultural and horticultural crops. Recently, the light-emitting diode (LED) trap driven by solar energy is a growing eco-friendly technology in pest control. The study was aimed to design, fabricate and investigate the effectiveness of a portable solar-powered LED trap for monitoring insect pests. The trap is compressed into a photovoltaic panel, battery, LED array, solar rectifier, insect collection tray, and PVC legs. Four different coloured LEDs viz., ultraviolet (UV)-405 nm, blue-470 nm, green-525 nm and red-630 nm were studied. The study was conducted in a groundnut field during the autumn season for 15 days. The results showed that the UV LED trap captured significantly more insects than the blue, green, and red LED traps except for Helicoverpa armigera. The average attraction of Spodoptera litura, Aproaerema modicella, Amsacta albistriga, Scirtothrips dorsalis, Aphis craccivora, and Empoasca kerri population to UV LED trap was 77.17 ± 18.89, 64.67 ± 12.91, 39 ± 16.80, 43.33 ± 18.30, 38.33 ± 17.08 and 33.17 ± 10.94, respectively. The red LED trap captured the least number of insects; however, the attraction of A. albistriga to the red LED was higher than the blue and green LED traps. Arcsine transformation (AT) was applied to transform experimental trap efficiency. UV LED trap had a significantly higher AT value than other LED traps. Overall mean AT values for UV, green, blue, and red LED traps were 34.98, 31.06, 29.87 and 22.87, respectively. The proposed portable solar-assisted LED trap could be a promising and effective pest control tool in areas where inconsistent electricity supply.