Drone application in rice cultivation: Experiences from ICAR-IIRR trails

Abstract

Intercultural operation in rice like raising nursery, seedling uprooting, transplanting, herbicide spray, fertilizer application, insect and disease control is highly tedious and laborious involve lots of human drudgery. Agricultural workers mostly women are suffering from pain in the neck, shoulder, upper back, lower back and thighs because they are compelled to adopt bending and sitting posture during manual uprooting and transplanting of rice seedlings, and weeding. Drones and their applications have the potential to ease the cumbersome process in agriculture and reduce the labour burden on the farmers and farm workers. Drone technology also improves the efficiency of farmers and saves time, and production costs. Before promoting this technology for large-scale adoption, the standardization of operating protocol for pesticide (herbicide, fertilizer, insecticide, fungicide) spray, sowing and supplementary pollination is highly important.