Yunnan Nanhua: Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Flying into the Field, Strengthening Agriculture and Promoting Revitalization through Science and Technology

Summer is coming, and the fields are lush with greenery. At present, it is the key node of the “fitness” for the growth and disease prevention of tobacco fields. Wujie Town, Nanhua County skillfully uses “drones” to carry out the unified control of tobacco pests and diseases, so as to protect the healthy growth of tobacco fields.

Recently, when walking into the Duan Family Group of Yiheidi Village Committee in Wujie Town, Nanhua County, villagers were loading pesticides into the UAV operation box, and then pressing the remote control, the UAV took off slowly, shuttling back and forth over the tobacco field. With the buzzing of the rotors, the UAV sprayed pesticides evenly on the tobacco leaves.

It is understood that a drone can load 50 kilograms of pesticides at once, and the duration and area of operation vary depending on the amount of spraying. A typical drone can operate on up to 500 acres of land per day, with a work efficiency 50 times that of manually spraying pesticides. At the same time, drones are used for integrated pest control, minimizing human contact with pesticides and effectively avoiding poisoning incidents that occur during manual pesticide spraying.

Nowadays, technology is becoming more and more advanced. My family has planted over 10 acres of tobacco this year. Previously, it took about 5 hours to apply pesticides once, but now when an unmanned aerial vehicle flies up, it takes only 5 minutes to apply. It’s really pesticide and labor saving, “said Duan Chaogui, a villager in the Duan family group.

“For three consecutive years, we have used unmanned aerial vehicles for ‘unified control’ flight control operations, and Pest control has achieved good results. This measure is not only welcomed by the vast number of flue-cured tobacco growers, but also a magic weapon to ensure stable yield and income of tobacco this year.” Wang Chunyue, the head of Wujie Tobacco Station, introduced.

In 2023, a total of 6810 acres of flue-cured tobacco were planted in Wujie Town, and 2000 acres were planned to use drones for professional plant protection. Taking full advantage of the characteristics of uniform spraying, wide operating range, stable performance, and high efficiency of drones, a total of 2 drones were invested, expected to complete the task in 3 days, saving 36000 yuan in pesticide costs and over 60000 yuan in labor costs, greatly improving labor production efficiency and allowing more tobacco farmers to feel the power of technology, From “knowing how to plant tobacco” to “knowing how to plant tobacco”, the path of technology farming and diversified wealth has become increasingly broad.

The “drone” spraying in Wujie Town is just a microcosm of Nanhua County’s efforts to promote high-quality agricultural development and rural revitalization. In recent years, Nanhua County has strengthened the measures to promote agriculture through science and technology, comprehensively improved the mechanization level of agricultural farming, moderately increased financial subsidies for agricultural production and processing machinery, comprehensively improved the level of agricultural science and technology, promoted the stable development of agriculture, and injected new impetus for scientific and technological development into rural revitalization.