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China Drone Attack on Crop-Eating ‘Monster’ Shows 98% Kill Rate

bloomberg.com

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Re: China Drone Attack on Crop-Eating ‘Monster’ Shows 98% Kill Rate

#21

Post by 52-6F-62 »

ben7799 wrote: post #3

This 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…

One that concerns me in North America is the Pine Beetle (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_pine_beetle) and its native, but affected by recent climate events.

The current infestation is actually causing the BC forests to be nearly a net carbon negative! (edit: to clarify I mean negative as in they're increasing the carbon output of the forests compared to the carbon sink. May be wording it wrong)

Re: China Drone Attack on Crop-Eating ‘Monster’ Shows 98% Kill Rate

#24

Post by newsreview1 »

This is fascinating. I'm extremely curious about the technology. How big are the drones, and how can they carry enough insecticide to cover a large area? Drones make sense to replace laboour-intensive and potentially harmful traditional backpack sprayers. I am curious as to affordability of this type of technology, and use outside of Asia. Can anyone point me in the right direction to read up on North American use?

Re: China Drone Attack on Crop-Eating ‘Monster’ Shows 98% Kill Rate

#25

Post by jb775 »

whatshisface wrote: post #2

Drones have very short flight times and can't carry that much weight. Can this really be cheaper than driving a tractor around?

For commercial applications like this, I'd assume the eventual setup would be to have drones follow pre-programmed routes linked to specific day/time flight schedules, then have them automatically return to a re-charging/re-filling station as needed. The time & labor savings alone would be astronomical. Tie a system like this in with solar energy, could also dramatically reduce energy costs and carbon footprint.

Re: China Drone Attack on Crop-Eating ‘Monster’ Shows 98% Kill Rate

#27

Post by gene-h »

This isn't that new, Yamaha has been selling a remotely controlled helicopter specifically made for applying insectcide on crops since 1991[0]. They were even used in aerial robotics research for a bit[1]. Helicopters are particularly nice for spraying crops because you have a nice turbulent downwash that pushes the pesticide onto the crops.

[0]https://www.yamahamotorsports.com/motorsports/pages/precisio... [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamaha_R-MAX#Research

Re: China Drone Attack on Crop-Eating ‘Monster’ Shows 98% Kill Rate

#29

Post by m-i-l »

dplgk wrote: post #23

Sad that the technical details are missing. How are the drones finding and targeting the worms?

It seems the drones are simply spraying insecticide, rather than anything more sophisticated such as plucking the caterpillars off the plants or shooting them with high pressure water jets. The advantage of drones over human pilots spraying insecticide appear to be that they are easier to get on site and can fly at night, allowing them to use lower strength insecticide.
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