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Can Drones Help Farmers For Pest Control?

Can drones help farmers for pest control? Yes, Through the analysis of photos collected by the drone they can pinpoint problem areas, and react to them more swiftly. They can rid the area from snails, aphids, rodents, and plant eating bugs by spraying with the drone.





Written by: AJ Keil




My name is AJ from and we will cover all the details in this article Can drones help farmers for pest control? But first a quick background to get a full understanding…





A drone is an unmanned aircraft, of simple construction, controlled by a remote “console” with buttons or levers, and modern drones can also be controlled via smartphones, applications and wireless connections. They may look like small planes or helicopters. Persons operating these aircraft must have special operating licenses.





Many authors and researchers support the widespread use of drones for agricultural purposes and believe that this would affect precision in agriculture.





This mini-aircraft allows easy timely monitoring of the condition and progress of crops, determining the need for irrigation, nutrition, protection against plant diseases and pests, and other various agrotechnical measures. Drones are used to determine the need for special landscaping, its repairs, including the necessary meliorative operations.






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The thermal fogger drone for orchard in the video is made by Joyance Tech. It is thermal fogger drone, specially designed for mosquito and insect control, and orchard spraying.

A GPS navigation drone can quickly capture and map a farm or production area, accurately and repeatedly displaying the status of a pest surface, the occurrence of plant diseases, lack of soil moisture, and similar farm operations.





At the same time, it can produce large frames that cannot be obtained from satellites or planes without expensive video equipment. If a crop problem is observed, it can be photographed to determine its exact position by re-flying the drone over an area.





Through the analysis of photos collected by the drone, the following information is obtained:





  • the exact number of plants and the loss zone, which gives early insight into what the sowing was and whether corrective measures such as sieving are needed;
  • the presence of weeds and the location of the weed zones, which enables optimization of weed spraying;
  • general crop conditions — further information on the causes of problems such as pests, diseases, and stress caused by excess or shortage of water can be based on this information;
  • flowering percentage — based on these results, the grower can know what percentage of the total number of plants is in bloom, and prepare for further operations.

In addition to the above information, this can be used to determine the level of the land, identify the highest and lowest point, as well as calculate the total





DJI UAV Plant protection drone. Farmland agricultureImage from Pixabay – – AllDroneSchool



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Can drones help farmers for pest control?





This modern and advanced technology has proven to be an excellent agricultural tool, as it enables the analysis of every square meter of field, regardless of its size. This leads to lower production costs and enables measures that will lead to higher yields.





The use of this technology implies minimal knowledge in the field of computer science and of course the management of drones.






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Using drones to save on pesticide costs and loss – AllDroneSchool –



Pest control with drones





Land pests can cause economically significant damage to crop production, so their control is a regular measure to be observed by all farmers. The control of plots and the determination of the abundance of individual species, as well as the establishment of the threshold of harmfulness, and consequently the undertaking of control measures is the responsibility of every agricultural producer.





The most common pests in agriculture:





  • Aphids — occur every year. They inhabit young plant parts, which are juicy and soft. They appear during the spring. These pests suck up your bodysuit and suck up vegetable juices. Aphids can cause deformation of plant tissue and drying of plant parts. The attacked plants are lagging in growth, less flowering and forming fruits, are susceptible to disease. Aphids live in symbiosis with the “honeydew” ants that they secrete;
  • Leaf miners — are small insects whose larvae in leaf tissue make corridors and feed. Due to the attack of these pests, the plants are depleted, as the assimilation surface of the leaf is reduced. Combating leaf miners is very complex and requires a combination of different methods.
DJI drone spraying sugar cane. sugar cane drone farm spray spraying sugar cane plants – Image by from



Snails and rodents can harm crops as well





Insects are not yet a major problem in agricultural production. However, their high reproductive potential, the inability to timely control them at certain times, the frequent ignorance of the biology of the pest, and the inappropriate access to protection make them very dangerous. To minimize their harmfulness, it is necessary to visit the plots frequently, especially during critical periods, to observe the entire plot and not just the individual parts, and consult with an expert before deciding on possible chemical control.





  • Snails — their abundance occurs after mild winters and wet spring. The greatest damage is caused by the production of vegetables.
  • Rodents — various types of rodents such as field mouses, rats and hamsters can cause significant damage to cereals. During the fall, field mouses feed on seed sown as well as newly emerged crops. The main factors that cause these pests to occur are climatic conditions, unsystematic control and availability of food after the autumn crops are cultivated. Rodents are a significant group of pests that occur every year, and in the fall they cause damage to the cereals and rapeseed they are often the cause of root damage in young orchards. The crops are damaged by biting the young leaves of the plants around their burrows, creating easily visible oases in the field. They are polyphagous pests, which means that they damage many plant species on agricultural land. They are characterized by rapid propagation and, unless they are timely reduced by suppression, their numbers often grow to high when it is very difficult to protect crops and prevent the damage they cause. To keep rodent numbers under control, it is very important to take care of food waste when performing crop work, and good soil cultivation is also required to disrupt their habitats.




These pests live in the soil and cause damage to the plant root, root neck, bulbs and seeds.





The drone is used to control pests on farmland because traditional spray methods are not safe and operating efficiency is low.






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– Farmers are required to manage acres of farmland at a time, and have recently begun to tap into aerial technology to do so efficiently and sustainability. DJI MG-1S revolutionizes the way in which farmers can utilize drones to manage and take care of their crops. In this video, three individuals in the agricultural drone industry speak of their experiences with and tell us why it stands out amongst the UAV choices when considering factors of precision, effectiveness, intuitiveness, ease of use, safety, build and more. – AllDroneSchool



Advantages of pest control with drones:





  • Land condition assessment — precision agriculture is based on data, which allows farmers to take action based on accurate information on land conditions. Obtaining soil status data is achieved through the use of thermal, multispectral and hyperspectral technologies, and was previously based on physical field visits and manual metric data collection;
  • Crop protection from diseases and pests — In addition to land information, drones can also provide information on weeds, diseases, and pests based on the detection of threatened areas. Based on this information, farmers can determine the precise quantities of plant protection products, which has a double benefit, one costs reduction and the other is better crop health;
  • Crop control — since large agricultural production usually occupies large areas of land, it is difficult to successfully and accurately monitor the entire field by physical presence. By using a mapping drone, the farmer will be informed at all times of the condition of the crop on the entire production area, as well as in certain parts of the field that may require greater attention. Such information is obtained with the help of infrared cameras and by determining the speed of light absorption;
  • Planting/sowing of future crops — sowing seeds with drone changes old planting/sowing techniques, but is currently in an experimental phase. Shortly with the evolution of software, the drone will certainly be successfully implemented for precision sowing of crops. In addition to sowing drones, they have the option of spraying the field with water, fertilizer or sprays, which directly affects the cost reduction, manual labor and time spent applying these agrotechnical measures;
  • Reduces water consumption and reduces costs — farm drone spraying technology can save at least 50% of pesticide use, saving 90% of water consumption and greatly reducing resource costs;
  • The control effect is remarkable — the agricultural drone features low operating height, less drift and hovering in the air;
  • Easy to operate — overall drone size is light, lightweight, low depreciation rate, easy maintenance, low operating cost per unit of operation. The drone is easy to handle, operators usually quickly master basic rules and complete tasks after 30 days of training;
  • Efficient and safe — agricultural drones that fly, scale operations can reach high speeds, efficiency is at least 100 times greater than conventional spraying. Long-term surgery prevents the risk of pesticide exposure and improves the safety of spraying operations.
  • The drone is not only interesting to manufacturers but many insurance companies use a drone to observe large areas where damage has occurred.

Based on all the above, the agro-facts of digital technology certainly represent the future of agriculture and one of the possible solutions to the growing population and growing food needs.





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DJI farming agriculture. Plant protection droneAllDroneSchool – . – Photo by Pixabay



Specific features of agriculture drone use





Whether the aircraft is operated manually or allowed to operate automatically, in both cases great savings are achieved in chemicals. This is possible thanks to the special nozzles on sprayers that emit microns, much finer droplets than when sprayed from the ground, so the chemicals do not dissipate. This contributes to the protection of the environment.





Due to the arrangement of the propellers, which are not arranged in the same plane, the propellers act as a kind of fan, which turns the liquid discharged from the drone into a whirlpool-like haze. This way, the sheet is evenly soaked both from above and from below.





The drone is also equipped with an integrated radar, which allows the detection of obstacles in the field, such as trees, ancillary objects, or irrigation columns, and avoids them in flight. The radar is also used to monitor the terrain, so that the aircraft and in the hilly area can easily maintain distance to the ground.






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Agricultural plant protection drone, full automatic flying spray – AllDroneSchool

In case the drone is grounded during the spraying to replace the batteries and replenish the chemicals or water, then on the way back it returns to the place from which it was lowered and continues to treat the crops with the given route.





Depending on the crops being treated, the amount of chemicals per morning is also estimated, while the program automatically calculates the drone’s trajectory by entering the plant’s height. This also takes into account the minimum distance from the plant to the aircraft, which is half a meter, which means that the drone does not approach it less than that distance.





[h4]Many companies involved with agriculture drones



There are a significant number of companies involved in various workflows for the use of drones in agricultural production. Some companies are manufacturing aircraft, others are customizing them, third are managing them. Some companies make software that supports navigation or deals with the interpretation of drones.





The use of drones in agriculture has its drawbacks, which are very few, but they certainly exist. The main drawback is the management of these aircraft, although today more and more work is being done to make these aircraft fully customized for ease of use. Another significant drawback is that the quality of drone operation decreases with the onset of wind.





XAG Modular agriculture drones





Chinese company XAG has developed a new type of modular drone, which uses standard components but is intended for agriculture. Drones can spray pesticides as well as monitor crop health and control the presence of pests. Chinese farmers say using drones is easier and faster than spraying by hand or using standard agricultural machines, and is also cheaper.






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Introducing the XAG P30 Plant Protection Drone | Rise Above is the proud distributor The only UAV approved for chemical distribution in Australia! – AllDroneSchool

XAG is also developing drones with infrared cameras and sensors, which will be able to predict the quality and yield of the crop, and with the help of an application on a smartphone give the farmer an insight into the yields well before the harvest.





Today’s agricultural production has been transformed into high-tech entrepreneurship. If one strives for the advancement of agricultural production, one must keep up with the times. The use of drones can be of great importance in raising the efficiency of agricultural production.





Drones make our jobs faster and more accurate





Using drones is a qualitative step forward that allows us to get our jobs done more accurately and faster. It is modern-day agriculture because collecting data we do not see from the ground gives us the ability to detect any crop problem early and respond promptly.





Can drones help farmers for pest control? Conclusion:





In the future, we will be looking at drones that plant, record, and send information to the server. There, the software will decide how to treat the crops. But someone will still need to configure the server, build a drone or service the tractor. Products will need to be stored and processed by someone. The service sector will be further developed. The need for human resources will not disappear completely, but children should be directed to new technologies today and towards the future.





Digitization of agriculture is one of the most important tasks that will be pursued in the future to achieve more profitable environmental production.






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The FUTURE of FARMING – Technology is revolutionizing farming. That’s great news—by the year 2050 Earth’s population will be 10 billion, so we need to almost double the amount of food we now produce. – AllDroneSchool

Thank you so much for reading “Can drones help farmers for pest control?” – And be sure to share them with your friends as well.





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