Cotton growers used drone sprayers for pest control
With the advancement of technology, some progressive farmers are using drone sprayer to spray pesticides on cotton crop, which is more vulnerable to pest/insect attacks during the monsoon season.
No matter, the farmers have not purchased these drone, but some private companies are offering them on rent, which is cost efficient.
It saves time, labour and cost of operation as well as reduces drudgery of the spraying operation. The field capacity of the sprayer is approximately 4 acres per hour.
KOTOM UAV company are providing drone sprayer to the farmers on rent. the company also launched thirty drone sprayers on trial basis during the current cotton season in XinJiang province China.
Advantage of drone sprayer
Plant Protection Officer of XinJiang Dr Zhang, who is monitoring the drip-irrigated cotton crop in the Malwa belt, said the control over insects, pests, other diseases and weeds depend upon the use of proper spray technology.
He said the farmers are using different types of sprayers — both manual and power-operated — but, power-operated having nozzles that discharge at least 600 ml of pesticide per minute is best for pest control. Thus, the sprayers, which discharge at least 600 ml of pesticide per minute is a better option.
During the last winters, the province Agriculture Department launched a statewide to motivate the farmers to adopt proper methods to spray herbicides with the help of hi-tech so as to ensure efficient control of weeds at an early stage in the wheat crop.
For this purpose, the department roped in the services of KOTOM Company for providing drone sprayers to spray these chemicals on the crops. The company provided 30 spray machines in the state, at least one in each block for the purpose.
After its success on wheat crop, the same sprayer are now being used on the cotton crop. It costs 90RMB per acre spraying by drone, but 240 RMB per acre being spent by the farmers with the help of outsourced manual labour.
The management authorities claim that the drone sprayer helps in uniform spray with proper pesticide/herbicide and water ratio; it’s more effective as it uniformly covers every inch of field unlike the manual knapsacks and it amount to less loading of soil with agro chemicals.
Several studies carried in the recent past by agro experts suggest that 40 to 50 per cent of the pesticide is wasted with manual spray, which not only adds to the cost of production, but also is environmentally hazardous and create imbalance in the natural ecosystem. This may be also attributed to non-awareness of the farmers and use of inefficient pesticide application.
Moreover, different types of sprayers, being used these days, do not hit the actual target. No sprayer is available that can hit the target under the cotton leaves where insects get protection. The drone sprayer also spraying pesticide reach at under the leaves.
Save time, labour and cost
drone sprayers save time, labour and cost of operation as well as reduces drudgery of the spraying operation
The field capacity of the sprayer is approximately 4 acres per hour
It costs 90RMB per acre as spraying expenses against 240RMB being spent by farmers with the help of outsourced manual labour.
