The use of drones is becoming more and more necessary.
Some time ago, at the implementation stage, UAVs were perceived by some farmers as a fashionable toy.
We are now talking seriously about how the use of drones can help solve the problem of the food crisis, because by 2050 food production needs to be increased by about 60%.
With the help of UAVs, it is possible to quickly control the stages of growth and development of crops, build thermograms of fields and multispectral maps with vegetation indices, which allow predicting a potential harvest.
And that’s not all the «pros».
Drones, satellites and other advanced equipment, using artificial intelligence technologies, monitor weather and climate conditions, generating more reliable forecasts.
Equipped with smart technology, high-resolution cameras and high-tech data collection sensors, UAVs allow farmers to water not the entire field, but only those areas that require it. This, in turn, significantly saves water.
One of the main applications of drones is ultra-low-volume aerial spraying, which reduces the cost of field cultivation by several times.
China was the first to use this technology, where hundreds of thousands of farmers use drones.
It is much more profitable to buy several agricultural drones at once than to use an expensive self-propelled sprayer or involve herbicide companies.
In addition, up to 5% of the crop perishes from the passages of wheeled vehicles and the soil is overcompacted.
The help of drones is also important in maintaining the health of plants, due to the timely detection of pest attacks.
Drones are used for grazing: integrated with thermal imaging sensors, they allow you to graze and control livestock remotely.
Of course, for effective data management, it is necessary to update the software and build tools for processing, storing and analyzing the collected data.
In addition, in windy weather, it is much more difficult to fly a drone, which reduces the quality of the collected data and the photos taken.
Complicating the introduction of drones and dependence on the speed of the Internet, which in some agricultural regions is far from being at a high level.
But the interest of Russians in unmanned technologies is growing: in 2020, the UAV market turnover amounted to more than 1 billion rubles.
Farming is a very difficult job. If there are aspects that can be optimized and modernized through innovation, they definitely need to be implemented and used.
