Precision Farming
N. Bagheri; M. Safari; A. Sheikhi Garjan
Abstract
IntroductionAbout 30% of the annual losses of agricultural products are caused by pests, diseases, and weeds. Spraying is currently the most common method of their control. At present, various manual and tractor-mounted sprayers are used for spraying. Manual spraying has very low work efficiency and ...
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IntroductionAbout 30% of the annual losses of agricultural products are caused by pests, diseases, and weeds. Spraying is currently the most common method of their control. At present, various manual and tractor-mounted sprayers are used for spraying. Manual spraying has very low work efficiency and is damaging as the spray might be applied irregularly and consumed by the labor or the product at poisonous levels. Tractor-mounted sprayers are more efficient than manual sprayers and require less labor. However, their use is associated with issues such as compacting the soil or crushing the product. In recent years, Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) sprayers have been used to spray farms and orchards. UAV spraying can increase the spraying efficiency by more than 60% and reduce the volume of spray used by 20-30%. Based on the capabilities of the UAV sprayer and the limitations of other current spraying methods, the purpose of this research is to evaluate the performance of the UAV sprayer in controlling Brevicoryne brassicae (L.) and compare the results with a turbo liner sprayer.Materials and MethodsIn the present research, the UAV sprayer is studied as a new method of spraying to fight Brevicoryne brassicae (L.). The results were technically and economically evaluated and compared with the control group and that of the turbo liner sprayer (the conventional method of spraying canola in Iran). The experiment was triplicated with a completely randomized design and three treatments of UAV sprayer, turbo liner sprayer, and control (no spraying). Field tests were conducted on the canola crop at the stemming stage where at least 20% of the plants were infected. The measured parameters included drift, spraying quality, field capacity, field efficiency, energy consumption, and spraying efficiency.Results and DiscussionBased on the results, the spray volume consumed by UAV and turbo liner sprayers was equal to 11.1 and 187.6 liters per hectare, respectively. The particle drift in spraying with UAV sprayer and turbo liner sprayer were 53.3% and 80%, respectively. Moreover, the quality coefficient of UAV and turbo liner sprayers were 1.15 and 1.21, respectively. Therefore, the farm efficiency of the UAV sprayer and turbo liner sprayer was equal to 51.4% and 32.3%, respectively. Based on the results of the analysis of variance, immediately after spraying, there was no statistically significant difference between the average density of pests of the three treatments. However, three, seven, and 14 days after spraying, there was a significant difference between the control treatment and the spraying treatments. The density of pests in the plots sprayed with UAV and turbo liner sprayers was lowered to less than 100 pests per stem, whereas in the control treatment, the density varied between 250-700 pests per stem. A comparison of the average efficiency of the UAV sprayer and turbo liner sprayer with the t-test showed that both sprayers had managed to control the population of pests and 14 days after the spraying, the efficiency of the UAV sprayer was higher than that of the turbo liner sprayer.Conclusion- The spray volume consumed by the turbo liner sprayer was 17 times the UAV sprayer.- The spray drift was about 34% more in spraying with the turbo liner sprayer than the UAV sprayer.- The field efficiency of the UAV sprayer was 59.1% more than the turbo liner sprayer.- The energy consumption per hectare of the turbo liner sprayer was 7 times the energy consumption of the UAV sprayer.- UAV sprayer’s efficiency reached 92.7 % 14 days after spraying.- UAV sprayer is recommended for controlling Brevicoryne brassicae (L.) due to its high efficiency, low drift, low spray volume and energy consumption, and superior spraying quality.- To improve the performance of the UAV sprayer for controlling Brevicoryne brassicae (L.), a flight height of 1-1.5 meters from the top of the crop, a flight speed of less than 7 m s-1, and a maximum spraying speed of 4 m s-1 are recommended. Additionally, it is possible to prevent the spread of the pest in the stemming stage by spraying the field in an earlier stage.
Image Processing
F. Behzadi Pour; M. Ghasemi-Nejad Raeini; M. A. Asoodar; A. Marzban; S. Abdanan Mehdizadeh
Abstract
Introduction Today, attention to safety and environmental issues in all sectors in agriculture, industry and services is very important. Chemical poisons play an important role in rapid progress of agricultural products. Every year about 25 to 35 percent of the world's crops are affected by insects, ...
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Introduction Today, attention to safety and environmental issues in all sectors in agriculture, industry and services is very important. Chemical poisons play an important role in rapid progress of agricultural products. Every year about 25 to 35 percent of the world's crops are affected by insects, weeds and plant pathogens disappear and this figure would be raised to 80% if no control was applied. Drift problem and its devastating effects are the most important issue which related to users and sprayers manufacturers. Spray drift reduction and improvements in the efficiency of pesticide application processes are global goals. Where ever spraying is applied, drift will be produced and it must be controlled by controlled of the droplet size. The application of these sprayers is the high in the farms (the number of 2303 in Iran). So, this research was carried out to improve the quality of work in these sprayers by studying the droplets diameter and the spray quality index. Materials and Methods The research was conducted at the University of Khouzestan Ramin Agriculture and Natural Resources. Tests were done with 20 m of water sensitive papers at a distance of 2 meters from each other. To evaluate the technical items affecting on drift, an experiment was conducted using a turbo liner sprayer (TURBINA S.A. 800) and the John Deer (JD) 3140 tractor. A completely randomized factorial design was applied. By using 3 replications and the factors were spraying pressure applying three levels (10, 25 and 35 bar), the fan speed with two levels (1998 and 2430 rpm) and forward speed with two levels (9 and 13.5 km hr-1). The sprayer started the application, spraying a solution of water and tracer (yellow Tartrazine E 102), 15m before the water sensitive papers and then moved over the water sensitive papers. The spraying was continued 15 m after the end of the sampling area. After spraying, sensitive papers were photographed and then volume diameter of 50% (DV50) and median numerical diameter (NMD) and spraying quality indicator were calculated. A Spectrophotometry device at the wavelength of 427 nm, Image J and sas 9.2 software were used for measurement. This research was carried out in accordance with the calendar crop canola spraying in field conditions and the weather was calm that the wind speed was 0- 2.5 km hr-1, relative humidity was 29.7% - 32.5% and air temperature was 18.8˚C – 20.7˚C. Results and Discussion According to the results sprayer pressure, fan speed and forward speed were shown significantly different (P≤0.01) on the volume diameter of 50% (DV50) and median numerical diameter (NMD). The effect of spraying pressure on distributing quality indicator was shown significant (P ≤ 0.01), but the fan and forward speed did not shown any significant effect. Mean comparison of the interaction of pressure and forward speed on the spray quality index and the number median diameter were shown significant (P ≤ 0.01), but they did not shown any significant effect on the volume diameter of 50% (DV50). With increasing spraying pressure and fan speed, the droplet size, volume diameter of 50% (DV50) at 72% and numerical median diameter (NMD) at 69% and distributing quality indicator at 46% were decreased that were corresponded with the result of Czaczyk et al. (2012), Peyman et al. (2011), Nuyttens et al. (2009) and Landers and Farooq (2004). With increasing spraying pressure and forward speed, the droplet size, numerical median diameter (NMD) at 63% and distributing quality indicator at 35% were decreased that these resulted were corresponded with the results of Naseri et al. (2007) and Dorr et al. (2013). Conclusion With increasing spraying pressure, fan and forward speed, the droplet size, volume diameter of 50% (DV50) and numerical median diameter (NMD) were decreased. Therefore, spraying quality indicator was decreased. The maximum pressure (35 bars), maximum fan speed (2430 rpm) and maximum forward speed (13.5 km hr-1) were able to produce the minimum spraying quality indicator (10.3). At the minimum pressure (10 bars), maximum fan speed (2430 rpm) and minimum forward speed (9 km hr-1), the maximum spraying quality indicator (2.91) was resulted.
