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Ecology & Environment
Mahesh

31/08/24 11:11 AM IST

Drones can revolutionise pesticide and fertiliser application in Punjab fields

In News
    • Farmers in the village of Bhagthala Khurd in Faridkot district recently used drones to spray pesticides on their maize and moong crops.
    • Villages in Kapurthala and Amritsar have seen drones being deployed for similar purposes.
    Applications of Drones
    Protecting farmers from pesticides
    • Manual application of pesticides is labour-intensive. It can take a worker several hours to cover an acre of land — a task which drones can complete in only 5-7 minutes — during which they come in close contact with harmful pesticides.
    • This is particularly important when it comes to tall crops like maize and sugarcane, where workers often get drenched in pesticides during application.
    • Close and prolonged contact with pesticides as well as chemical fertilisers can be very harmful to farmers’ health.
    • In Punjab, this has been a major issue with farmers seeing higher-than-normal incidence of cancer cases, kidney ailments, immunological disorders, Parkinson’s disease, and infertility as a result of wanton pesticide application.
    • By taking pesticide application out of farmers’ hands (literally) drones can thus protect farmers’ health.
    More efficient application
    • Drones allow for more efficient application in more ways than one.
    • Manual spraying often leaves some parts of the crop untreated. This adversely impacts yields. In contrast, drone-based applications are more uniform.
    • Gurpreet Singh, a farmer from the village of Bhagthala Kalan in Faridkot district, reported that pests persisted even after two manual sprayings, but since he began to use a drone for pesticide application, his maize crop became healthy and yields have gone up.
    • Moreover, drones address the challenge of applying nano fertilisers such as nano urea and nano DAP, which need to be used in very small quantities.
    • Uniform manual applications of these nano fertilisers can be challenging, preventing their widespread use even though they are more cost-efficient.
    • For example, a 500 ml bottle of nano urea which is sufficient for covering one acre of farmland costs Rs 225 — a 45 kg bag of urea costs Rs 266, with farmers needing 2.5 to 3 bags per acre.
    • Nano fertilisers are also more environmentally friendly (more on that later).
    Crop monitoring and emergency applications
    • Drones can also be used for capturing detailed, real-time images of the fields, allowing farmers to monitor crop health and make prompt interventions if needed. This is especially important in the case of epidemics.
    • For instance, in recent years, the pink bollworm has ravaged cotton crops in Punjab (and neighbouring states).
    • This pestilence can be mitigated by regular and proper monitoring of crops — something which farmers often fail to do.
    • Drones are a game-changer in this regard.
    • Moreover, drones can quickly cover vast swathes of land with pesticides not only in cases of pink bollworm infestation but also during ocust swarms and whitefly infestations.
    Environmental benefits
    • Drones can be environmentally beneficial in several ways.
    • First, up to 90 per cent nutrients in nano fertilisers applied via drones are absorbed by plants, reducing runoff and minimising air, water, and soil pollution.
    • In contrast, traditional application methods can lead up to 60 per cent of nutrients being lost to the air.
    • Second, leave based application — unlike soil based application of traditional urea and DAP fertilisers — are significantly better when it comes to soil pollution.
    • In Punjab, where fertiliser usage is already the highest in the country, this reduction in soil pollution is beneficial for soil health, and over time, the health of crops and consumers themselves.
    • Third, traditional methods of pesticide application are extremely water-intensive. Drones can cut down water consumption by up to 90 per cent.
    Other innovative uses
    • Besides spraying pesticides and fertilisers, drones are also being explored for innovative projects such as “seed ball” bombing — basically dropping balls of soil and cow dung containing seeds over swathes of land.
    • In Hoshiarpur, this is being seen as a way to potentially reforest large swathes of land.
    • Perhaps the biggest issue, when it comes to the adoption of drones, is the elimination of several jobs which were till now being held by labourers.
    • This is especially so because not only are drones more efficient, they are also cheaper than hiring labourers.
    • Drones cost roughly Rs 200 per acre of coverage, whereas labour costs currently stand at around Rs 300 per acre.
    • Additionally, pilots also need training, not only to fly drones but to effectively cover entire fields while spraying fertilisers and pesticides.
    Source- Indian Express

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