(ModBee) - Apple, the high-tech company, is helping to protect apples, the fruit, along with other crops around the state.A campaign urges residents to take photos of invasive insects and plants with their iPhones or iPads.

They then can transmit the images to the California Department of Food and Agriculture, which will determine whether they are a threat.The Report a Pest app can be downloaded for free from the Apple App Store. An Android version is under development, according to the CDFA.So, the bug and weed fighters have one more tool for their long-running effort to protect farms, ranches, forests and waterways from pests.Some of the work is low-tech, such as when inspectors simply look at nursery plants for insects. Some of it relies on dogs, whose ability to sniff out produce in mail shipments is as impressive as anything out of Silicon Valley.The stakes are huge. The Modesto area's wine industry could suffer if the European grapevine moth were to take hold in vineyards.