Pesticides, fertilisers to be ‘air-dropped’

Having completely ready for a new-age agriculture where engineering and IT methods will engage in a main purpose, Prof Jayashankar Telangana Condition Agricultural College will begin experimenting with drone spraying of pesticides and fertilisers.

Starting the upcoming kharif period, the college will evaluate the affect of this kind of spraying on numerous elements of a plant and gather facts.

Working methods

“We will pin litmus paper-like materials to the leaves at various degrees of the plant. We can depend the depth of the spray by measuring the amount of droplets. Diverse crops call for various doses of pesticide sprays, and at various degrees of the plant,” V Praveen Rao, Vice-Chancellor, told BusinessLine.

The university’s scientists will construct Typical Working Procedures (SOPs) on the height at which the drones should really fly, the width of spray protection, and the depth of the spray on numerous elements of the plant.

Post iterations, the SOPs for drone flight path, altitude, quantum and unfold of the payload for numerous crops can be replicated by farmers. “We have chosen paddy, cotton, redgram, maize and soya for the pilot that we are using up in 5 districts,” Rao claimed.

After developing the protocols, the college options to deal with crops in other States.

Ministry’s nod

The Civil Aviation Ministry has given permission to the college and Marut Dronetech Non-public Constrained (which delivers drones) to use drones for evaluation and standardisation of plant security methods and producing protocols for the analysis of main pests and illnesses. The permission is valid until March 16, 2022.

Founded by IIT-Guwahati alumni, Marut Dronetech has made drone methods for eradication of mosquitoes, sustainable agriculture and afforestation.

“We have mapped and invited about one hundred ten tech start off-ups doing work in numerous features of agriculture to assess their options. Of them, we have identified 12 start off-ups that plan to deploy technologies this kind of as blockchain, synthetic intelligence, device finding out, drones and sensors to evaluate soil humidity,” Rao claimed. The college options to incubate this kind of start off-ups and mentor them.