Preliminary project design for insect production: part 5 – models and simulation of insect production – organism development

Abstract

The issue dealt with here is the rearing of an organism from egg to larva to pupa as is commonly done with various mealworms and black soldier flies, while organism development is the principal subject of interest. In order to obtain a uniform product at harvest time, the population should be synchronised as much as possible and this means that variability in development in the population must be reduced to the greatest possible extent. Four main sources of variability in development were identified, two of them operational and two biological in nature. These are: (1) distribution of the initial ages of the eggs; (2) distribution of incubation temperatures of the organisms; (3) inherent variability in the development rate of individual organisms; and (4) distribution in temperature sensitivity of the organisms. The combined effects of the various sources of variability on production and productivity were examined by means of simulation. This kind of exercise is useful in a number of contexts: (a) during the very early stage of project planning, as part of preliminary project design, before any formal design work is started and well before any major financial commitments are made; (b) during trouble-shooting of a low-performing process in order to upgrade its product quality; (c) to develop specifications for egg age distribution, design specifications for incubation equipment, etc.; (d) to better understand what data are required about the organism of interest so as to facilitate process design; and (e) to set objectives for organism breeding efforts. Examples are presented of how variabilities in the various factors can combine to yield organism development distributions at harvest time and how understanding the interactions between factors can help in designing a better production process.