My PhD focuses on the effectiveness of biosensors in the detection of woody plant pests and diseases. In practice, the cost, speed, mobility, sensitivity and accuracy of any method used to look for pathogenic organisms will determine not only its effectiveness, but whether it gets deployed in the first place in any given scenario. Methods which perform better across all five points could have far-reaching positive implications for management and research. In this context, my goal is to assess the performance of biosensors in the field.