The use of new technology in every sector has arisen rapidly over time. Most of the human consumption works in today’s world have been replaced by machines and new techniques with more accuracy and high efficiency.
In the early, the
agriculture sector was a fully human, animal, and time-consuming process
throughout the life span of crops. Now the vast range of machinery and new
technological applications are available for each of the agricultural stages.
New techniques are used to plan the cultivation according to the details about
the land, soil, weather condition, and even pest and disease control
mechanisms.
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| Image by DJI-Agras from Pixabay |
This kind of prepared
farming is called precision agriculture or precision farming.
Drone application in
precision agriculture allows farmers to collect data about their farming lands
and monitoring facilities. For example, farmers can constantly monitor their
cropland and livestock as an aerial view without going to the land. Then the
farmer can identify and manage the croplands according to the identified
problems and issues in there.
Today drone technology
is applied not only for monitoring and data collection purposes. Numerous types
of drones are used with high technology to manage the crop and livestock (Ipate, Voicu and Dinu, 2015).
1. Mapping
and Surveying
The most common application of drones
for all sectors is data collection as photographs or other meaningful data. The high-resolution image capturing, data views in real-time, and automated data
processing through the cloud and give meaningful information as output are the
main features of high technological drones. 2D or 3D Mapping of collected data
according to the soil condition, moisture or pest damages, land preparation,
and grassing areas are the most frequent use of drones in large-scale farming.
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| Image by DJI-Agras from Pixabay |
2. Monitoring
Plant Health/ Livestock/ Field condition
Monitoring the ability of field
conditions and plant health is the best achievement of drone images. Normalized
Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) is special imaging equipment that uses the
colour information of identical plants. Because each plant leaf releases a
different colour combination according to their health. Dead leaf stressed or
fresh leaves of a plant can easily recognize with the emitted colour and NIR
wavelengths. Compared to satellite image uses in data collection, drone images
are high resolution and easy to extract information. Also, the drone image
process is cheaper and faster than satellite images. The main reason for
accurate and speed information by drones is frying ability near to the land
area. That gives drone images to millimetre accuracy while satellite images
only get meter accuracy. However, in drone view, farmers can identify the
growth and problems in the crop field before it spread over the whole land
area.
Field irregularity, wetted and dry
areas, and vegetated areas can monitor through drone mapping images. These data
help to identify the health of the field and soil. Then farmers can plan their
field preparation methods, watering patterns, treatment planning, and even fertigation
routing. The information of elevation and moisture conditions helps to plan the
field aimed at particular crops. When drone image gives information on a wetted
and dry area of the land; farmers can plan irrigation channels, next day
wetting patterns, water requirement and watering periods, and many field
practices.
3. Spray
application
Spray treatment is a widely used
application in Asian regions, especially South Korea and Japan. Pesticides,
herbicides, or even fertilizers can apply using drones specifying the
requirement. Most hazardous chemical treatments for risky planting areas need
more skilled workers and more timing-consuming work. But drone sprayers solve
this problem with zero labour, fine spray with high efficiency. Most countries
already use these drone sprayers for their agriculture fields and it is more
than 30% in the Asian region. But Canada and some other countries still do not
give legal permission to use drone sprayers until the estimation of impact by
drone to the environment.
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| A Spray drone , Image by DJI-Agras from Pixabay |
4. Drone
Irrigation
Most countries are trying to make
exciting uses of drones to overcome the main problems in agriculture. Climate
change is one of them which we can not control. The only solution is to get
used to it while finding solutions for climate change issues like increasing
drought conditions, high rainfall season, etc. As an example, a crop field does
not have planned to irrigate for more than four months according to your water
sources the drone irrigation is the best solution. Drone irrigation has high
efficiency than regular drip irrigation. Because drone applications can control
according to the on-time collected information about soil moisture and plant
conditions. It means water distribution is done evenly according to the drone
maps on water requirements.
5. Planting
seeds
A sort of new application of drones in
agriculture is seeding. Especially this planting method is used in dry zone
countries for reforestation. Hard seed coated and high viability seeds are
commonly select for drone planting. Hard to reach areas can be cultivated by
automated drone seeders under high efficiency and with zero workers. The
approximate capability of 10 drones by two operators is 400,000 seeds per day
for drone seeding.
6. Pollination
Drone pollination is a testing stage
usage of drones in agriculture. Netherland, Japan like developed agriculturally
based countries trying pollination drone technology for the technological
era.
Because pollination can double the yield for most crops. It is a time and labour-consuming task. This application would be one of the best solutions for sustainable agriculture in the future.
7. Security
works
Specially drone security works applied
with livestock management. The drone can easily observe livestock behaviour when
animals send for grassing. Also, the drone works as a herdsman while leading
animals to correct grassing areas according to pre-planned maps of grassing
remotely. Similarly, drones can keep as field observers or as security. It
saves time and money from the farmer.
Summery
Agriculture with
technology lets farmers have a high yield with minimum inputs and efforts.
Drone application is one of the upcoming techniques in the large-scale farming
industry. Even drones have a vast range of applications some of the
applications are under control and inspection. Because this is new to the
agriculture sector. In the future, the world will get used to drone-based
precision agriculture due to its usefulness.
Author: Yashmi Jayaweera
BSc. ( Hons. ) Agriculture
Reference:
1.
Ipate,
G., Voicu, G. and Dinu, I. (2015) ‘Research on the use of drones in precision
agriculture, UPB Scientific Bulletin, Series D: Mechanical Engineering,
77(4), pp. 263–274.
2.
Meola, A., 2021. Precision agriculture in
2021: The future of farming is using drones and sensors for efficient mapping
and spraying. [online] Business Insider. Available at:
<https://www.businessinsider.com/agricultural-drones-precision-mapping-spraying>
[Accessed 16 August 2021].
3. Croptracker.com.
2021. Drone Technology In Agriculture. [online] Available at:
<https://www.croptracker.com/blog/drone-technology-in-agriculture.html>
[Accessed 19 August 2021].
4.
Pinguet, B., 2021. The Role of Drone
Technology in Sustainable Agriculture. [online] Precisionag.com. Available
at: <https://www.precisionag.com/in-field-technologies/drones-uavs/the-role-of-drone-technology-in-sustainable-agriculture/>
[Accessed 1 September 2021].
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