The Jiuzhou Aerial Spraying Team is a professional agricultural team based in Xinjiang, China. It has been one year since they started their agricultural care service in this vast, rich land in Northwestern China. Chen Lifeng, the team leader has never given up his dream to work in agriculture, despite a terrible accident at 26 that deprived him of the ability to walk. Lifeng said: “In 2015, I was very impressed by the efficiency of agricultural drones at the Beijing Global Entrepreneurial Leaders Forum. DJI, specifically, has shown me how drone technology and innovations could change the agricultural industry. I was inspired to start this team in Xinjiang.” Despite many doubters, Lifeng has proved with his own life story that a man in a wheelchair can complete spraying operations with a drone.
Chen Lifeng has brought three types of drone to Tacheng, Xinjiang since May 2016. He found that the DJI AGRAS MG-1 was the only one able to endure long operation times with a low failure rate. The Jiuzhou Aerial Spraying Team now uses the MG-1 for most missions. Chen Lifeng and his team
Lifeng and his team felt their way to finish spraying operations with drone. Their operations have covered over 1182 acres of field, and served to prevent and cure wheat leaf rust and wheat stripe rust.
Last July, the Jiuzhou Aerial Spraying Team has impressed farmers with its pest control capabilities. When a tomato matures, it is difficult for an agricultural vehicle to spray without causing damage. Moreover, liquids sprayed by agricultural vehicles cannot reach the underside of leaves or lower parts of plants. In contrast, drones are safer, more efficient, and do not harm the tomatos. Using downward airflows generated by propellers, liquids sprayed can reach the underside of leaves and the lower parts of plants.
The Jiuzhou Aerial Spraying Team is able to cover over 3295 acres in 20 days while saving farmers 1,800 CNY per acre. Farmers in Tacheng area soon learned that DJI drones are efficient and cost-effective new technologies for modern agriculture.
In mid-August, the Jiuzhou Aerial Spraying Team finished most of their spraying operations in the Tacheng area and began spraying cotton defoliant with the support of the Agri-Technology Promotion Station of Bortala Fifth Division. This is an agriculture care case shared by the Jiuzhou Aerial Spraying Team.
Operation Purpose Test and verify the effect of different, drone-sprayed defoliants on cotton. Provide technological experience for future operations. Using drones to spray cotton defoliant is a new technology for cotton farmers in the Bortala area, making this test revolutionary.
Operation Parameters Flight Mode: GPS Mode Operation Mode: Intelligent and Manual Aircraft Altitude: Approximately 2-meters Interval between Operating Flight Path: 5m Nozzle: Fan nozzles equipped on both fore and rear side of aircraft
Environment Location: Field No. 2 of the 4th Well in the 6th Division, 81st Regiment. Test covered 36 acres of field, of which 26 are sprayed by drone and 10 by agricultural vehicle. Crop: Cotton - Xinluzao No. 29 (14-3). 13,400 cotton plants in total, average height 70cm. Terminal buds removed manually. Soil: Loam with medium fertility. Weather: Sunny, low winds, temperature around 26°C. Experiment Design Two treatment groups and one control group. Spraying operations Use the DJI AGRAS MG-1 to spray ethephon (240g per acre) on Sep. 5th; Control Group: Use a tractor to spray Yicai (180g per acre) and ethephon (210g per acre) on Sep. 1st; and spray Yicai again (180g per acre) on Sep. 6th.
Tribufos, 70.5% emulsifier Ethephon, 40% water Yicai, 50% Thidiazuron (TDZ) suspending agent
Approximately 10-acres of the test field was nearly triangular, requiring the pilot and ground staff to finished spraying manually while using a radio to communicate. Remaining fields were rectangular and were flown using the MG-1’s Intelligent Flight Modes. Flight altitude is about 2m, spraying width is 5m, spraying speed is 3m/s. Fan nozzles on the front and rear of aircraft spray cotton twice in one flight. The MG-1 has a payload of 10kg of liquid, allowing it to cover 1.3-acres of field in one flight. A two-step dilution method was applied to prepare the liquids; ethephon and defoliant were prepared separately. The Jiuzhou Aerial Spraying Team created a 3-man crew for each working aircraft: one pilot, one ground crew and one logistics staff, all cooperating closely and efficiently. To excel in their defoliant mission, all team members studied features of cotton growth, as well as traditional methods for spraying defoliant. In so doing they created a defoliant solution using drone, making the best use of downward airflows generated by propellers to increase their operating efficiency. In their solution, liquids sprayed by drone is spread evenly and in higher concentrations, meaning the cotton absorbs the defoliant better. It only takes the drone to spray defoliant once, whereas traditionally a tractor needed two sprays to achieve similar results.
The Jiuzhou Aerial Spraying Team can spray 26 acres of cotton in 4.5 hours, from 9:00 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. On average, 6.7 acres were sprayed per hour, earning them 1,600 CNY. This means, they could spray at least 60 acres of cotton per day and earn over 3,000 CNY.
According to water-sensitive paper, droplets on the underside of leaves were sprayed evenly.
Spraying operations in three test groups
Select three areas in each group, then select 10 cotton plants from each area as samples. Sample areas should be away from the edge of the field, and sample plants should be in similar growth stage. Do not count double plants.
Cotton field after drone-spraying
Survey time: there were 4 surveys in total: 1 before spraying and others 5, 10, and 15 days after spraying. Each survey recorded the leaves, cotton bolls and de-leaf condition in treatment 1, treatment 2, and control groups. From this, de-leaf rates and cotton boll amounts could be ascertained.
De-leaf rate
From the table above, it is easy to see that Treatment 2 had the highest de-leafing rate, reached 94% 15 days after spraying, compared to 92.4% and 91.9% respectively for Treatment 1 and the Control (sprayed twice) Cotton bolling rate
According to table above, bolling rates in the three groups were very close, with all reaching 90% 15 days after spraying. Weather information
Conclusion Spraying operations (using Tribufos defoliant) carried out using the MG-1 was highly efficient. It took a tractor (using Yicai defoliant) two sprays to achieve similar de-leafing rates.
Fan nozzles used by the MG-1 had much better atomizing effect than cone nozzles on a tractor. Airflows generated by propellers sent droplet around leaves in reached lower down the cotton, increasing the de-leaf rate. Additionally, as tractors often damage a number of plants or knock off cotton bolls, the use of a drone for spraying increases cost-effectiveness further.
Case Study provided by: Xinjiang Jiuzhou Aerial Spraying Team
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