This seems dangerous in the hands of a nationalistic government.
The article was about the Chinese using it, not the US.
China Drone Attack on Crop-Eating ‘Monster’ Shows 98% Kill Rate
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Re: China Drone Attack on Crop-Eating ‘Monster’ Shows 98% Kill Rate
#12Drones have very short flight times and can't carry that much weight. Can this really be cheaper than driving a tractor around?
The challenge is getting the tractors into the right locations and keeping their operators out of the spray. It would be harder to get precise application so they are more likely to use more and higher concentrations of pesticide.
The most cost-effective response using traditional application of pesticides is probably bigger drones (aka a flying tractor)
Re: China Drone Attack on Crop-Eating ‘Monster’ Shows 98% Kill Rate
#13Drones have very short flight times and can't carry that much weight. Can this really be cheaper than driving a tractor around?
Looks like you got some downvotes for not showing a relentless enthusiasm for using the latest tech to solve every problem.
Re: China Drone Attack on Crop-Eating ‘Monster’ Shows 98% Kill Rate
#14Drones have very short flight times and can't carry that much weight. Can this really be cheaper than driving a tractor around?
The article mentions controlled dosage and the fact the worms eat at night so perhaps having a human on a tractor chasing worms by night is not the best solution either.
Re: China Drone Attack on Crop-Eating ‘Monster’ Shows 98% Kill Rate
#15Re: China Drone Attack on Crop-Eating ‘Monster’ Shows 98% Kill Rate
#16Ah yes, Bayer Crop Science. The science division of a company that likes Monsanto's business model so much, they bought Monsanto. Good to see they found a fresh market for releasing "low-toxicity insecticide" into the food chain.
Re: China Drone Attack on Crop-Eating ‘Monster’ Shows 98% Kill Rate
#17This seems dangerous in the hands of a nationalistic government.
I see the Chinese bots are alive and well.
Re: China Drone Attack on Crop-Eating ‘Monster’ Shows 98% Kill Rate
#18This is pretty interesting to read... I think our media normally ignores North American pests travelling to other parts of the world. Around here we have a lot of talk about pests that have arrived from China that affect our local plants but not many that talk about our pests that have invaded China. Locally I've had to deal with the Asian Winter Moth decimating trees in my yard and throughout the area I live in. Tha…
I guess most people just know best about what pests affect their area. Here in France, phylloxera is well known for having decimated our vines after having arrived from America (what saved the French wine industry was grafting our species on the roots of phylloxera-resistant but unpalatable American vines). Same for the Argentinian ants that have founded the supercolony along the Mediterranean coast.
Also a disease of plane trees introduced in France/Europe from the US (WWII, I believe)
Here in the UK we also have a problem with american squirrels.
Re: China Drone Attack on Crop-Eating ‘Monster’ Shows 98% Kill Rate
#19Drones have very short flight times and can't carry that much weight. Can this really be cheaper than driving a tractor around?
They can still fly long enough on a set of batteries to spray a reasonably-sized field. They can be much more precise than spraying from a plane and are much cheaper.
They have a real use-case though of course they are not always the best option.
Re: China Drone Attack on Crop-Eating ‘Monster’ Shows 98% Kill Rate
#20In other news, insecticide resistant armyworms soon to be decimating crops across China as several thousand resistant individuals remain to breed with local populations after each application of pesticide.