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Abstract Insect pests significantly impact global agricultural productivity and crop quality. Effective integrated pest management strategies require the identification of insects, including beneficial and harmful insects. Automated identification of insects under real-world conditions presents several challenges, including the need to handle intraspecies dissimilarity and interspecies similarity, life-cycle stages, camouflage, diverse imaging conditions, and variability in insect orientation. An end-to-end approach for training deep-learning models, InsectNet, is proposed to address these challenges. Our approach has the following key features: (i) uses a large dataset of insect images collected through citizen science along with label-free self-supervised learning to train a global model, (ii) fine-tuning this global model using smaller, expert-verified regional datasets to create a local insect identification model, (iii) which provides high prediction accuracy even for species with small sample sizes, (iv) is designed to enhance model trustworthiness, and (v) democratizes access through streamlined machine learning operations. This global-to-local model strategy offers a more scalable and economically viable solution for implementing advanced insect identification systems across diverse agricultural ecosystems. We report accurate identification (>96% accuracy) of numerous agriculturally and ecologically relevant insect species, including pollinators, parasitoids, predators, and harmful insects. InsectNet provides fine-grained insect species identification, works effectively in challenging backgrounds, and avoids making predictions when uncertain, increasing its utility and trustworthiness. The model and associated workflows are available through a web-based portal accessible through a computer or mobile device. We envision InsectNet to complement existing approaches, and be part of a growing suite of AI technologies for addressing agricultural challenges. 

Abstract Developments in genomics and phenomics have provided valuable tools for use in cultivar development. Genomic prediction (GP) has been used in commercial soybean [Glycine maxL. (Merr.)] breeding programs to predict grain yield and seed composition traits. Phenomic prediction (PP) is a rapidly developing field that holds the potential to be used for the selection of genotypes early in the growing season. The objectives of this study were to compare the performance of GP and PP for predicting soybean seed yield, protein, and oil. We additionally conducted genome‐wide association studies (GWAS) to identify significant single‐nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) associated with the traits of interest. The GWAS panel of 292 diverse accessions was grown in six environments in replicated trials. Spectral data were collected at two time points during the growing season. A genomic best linear unbiased prediction (GBLUP) model was trained on 269 accessions, while three separate machine learning (ML) models were trained on vegetation indices (VIs) and canopy traits. We observed that PP had a higher correlation coefficient than GP for seed yield, while GP had higher correlation coefficients for seed protein and oil contents. VIs with high feature importance were used as covariates in a new GBLUP model, and a new random forest model was trained with the inclusion of selected SNPs. These models did not outperform the original GP and PP models. These results show the capability of using ML for in‐season predictions for specific traits in soybean breeding and provide insights on PP and GP inclusions in breeding programs.