Agri-drone Demonstration at ICAR-CRIJAF

22^nd March 2023, Barrackpore

ICAR-Central Research Institute for Jute and Allied Fibers, Barrackpore has been making efforts to implement the technologies of precision agriculture in jute. In this direction ICAR-CRIJAF has been selected as one of the ICAR Institutes for “Drone technology demonstration” under the Sub Mission of on Agricultural Mechanization, today. A drone based spraying demonstration was conducted at the ICAR-CRIJAF campus to create farmers’ awareness and promotion of drone technology.

 Kisan drones is a revolutionary technology that is effectively used for the precision spraying of pesticides thereby reducing chemical usage and its cost, assessment of crop health, and real-time monitoring of weed, disease, and insect infestations over large area thus enabling their timely management.

Jute is an important natural fibre crop in India next to cotton. Raw jute being a biodegradable and annually renewable source, it is considered an environment-friendly crop and it helps in the maintenance of the environment and ecological balance. Jute crop exceeds optimum spraying height by 40-50 days after sowing and therefore conventional manual spraying of pesticides becomes difficult at mid and later stages of crop growth.  Moreover, manual spraying leads to non-uniform pesticide application, poor penetration of active ingredient into the dense canopy and low application efficiency leading to inadequate control of disease and pests.

Dr. Gouranga Kar, Director, ICAR-CRIJAF said that Drone technology is going to be very popular among the farmers in near future as it’s very handy to apply pesticides and monitor the crop with better accuracy and least time. Drone-based pesticide spraying is safer for farmers avoiding physical exposure to pesticides and is more convenient in taller crops like jute. Crop-spraying drones have much higher work efficiency (6 minutes /acre) compared with manual spraying.

Various benefits of drone-based spraying were explained by ICAR-CRIJAF scientists to farmers which created great interest and motivation among the stakeholders.

The program was attended by 150 farmers and other stakeholders.

(Source: ICAR-Central Research Institute for Jute and Allied Fibers, Barrackpore)