SEC | S20W6: The Use of Drones in Agriculture

Using drones in sowing fertilizers or watering plants using pesticides can certainly save time, energy and costs, but unfortunately there are still many farmers in Indonesia who still cannot afford to buy this tool so if they want to use this tool they have to pay rent if they want to use this tool.

But the use of drones for agriculture is only in a few big cities in Indonesia, because considering the price of drones is very expensive. In the village where I live, especially in Aceh, I have not found drone aircraft used by farmers.

So the farmers in my village still sow fertilizer directly by going down to the fields and also spray it manually using a sprayer or spray tank that is usually carried like a bag. Yes we know, this kind of work is very tiring and also harmful to the body when the sprayed pesticide gets on the skin and breathing.

🌾 How do drones contribute to precision and efficiency in agricultural practices? What are the main benefits of using drones in agriculture?

_{My face looked very tired after monitoring the entire farm, what would happen if I monitored the entire farm using a drone?}

The presence of drone technology is very helpful for the agricultural sector, saving time, effort and cost. However, because the price of drones for agriculture is still sold at an expensive price, farmers have not been able to utilize the tool optimally. The main benefits of using drones in agriculture are specifically as follows:

⏳ Time, energy and cost efficiency, as I have explained at the beginning the use of drones can save work time, ideally if someone wants to sow fertilizer or spray pesticides on a 1 hectare farmland it might take up to half a day, besides that it is very draining when lifting fertilizer, sowing it in the fields, and walking on the ground full of mud. But by using drones this kind of work can be done in just one hour.

☠️ Appropriate use of pesticides, as we know many farmers use drones to spray pesticide liquid, using drones in spraying pesticides makes the plants reached more evenly than the manual method, besides the safety and health factors are also very important, because farmers are not exposed to pesticide liquid directly on their bodies.

🤳 Remote monitoring, the camera on the drone can function to monitor crops more evenly and thoroughly because it has a long range, even farmers can monitor every few weeks without having to go directly to the vast rice fields.

🌾 How do drones help manage soil moisture and nutrient levels in crops?

_Source

Some drones have advanced technology, capturing all the data in the field so that farmers can determine the health of the plants, soil moisture, nutrient levels, and detect the presence of pests. But until now I have never seen a drone with this technology in Indonesia.

A drone that has advanced technology that has a soil moisture sensor, when this sensor is activated the farmer can directly see data from various parts of the land. This data can help the farmer to optimize the excess water or lack of water on the plants. In addition, drones with advanced technology can easily capture data on the presence of pests that can damage crops.

🌾 Explain the importance of multispectral and hyperspectral imaging sensors in agricultural drones?

Drones equipped with multispectral and hyperspectral imaging sensors have the ability to capture more information than using ordinary cameras, these sensors are able to record light at various wavelengths that cannot be seen directly by the human eye, such as infrared cameras that can capture images even in very dark conditions.

This sensor is very important in agriculture, because it can more accurately detect the slightest changes that occur in plants that cannot be seen directly by the human eye, the benefits of this sensor such as being able to determine plant health, soil moisture, nutrient levels, detect the presence of pests, mapping various types of plants, mapping areas of plants that are overwatered and underwatered, detecting differences in the color of healthy rice leaves, detecting stress that occurs in rice plants, detecting nitrogen deficiency due to uneven fertilizer use.

🌾 How do drones help with soil mapping and why is it important for precision agriculture?

Look at the photo below, we can see some differences in the color of the rice plants in the indicated field location, even though all the plants were planted at the same time with the same seeds. This difference is due to the precision of the soil and the different acidity of the soil.

_{Different levels of soil acidity}

Precision agriculture is very important because it can optimize the use of resources more effectively and efficiently and can increase maximum yields, besides the main goal is to increase the abundance of crops.

The presence of drones that have special sensors to help with soil mapping can create more precise agriculture, one of the main benefits of precision agriculture is that it can create topographic maps that display all data in the field more accurately than traditional surveys that only use the senses directly, besides that farmers can easily detect fertile and infertile soil areas, detect soil that lacks nutrients or areas prone to erosion.

Precision soil mapping is very important so that farmers are able to detect problems that might occur in plants earlier against pests and diseases, information is very useful for farmers so that they can take preventive steps more quickly and accurately, faster control can certainly increase more abundant crop yields.

Thus this article, I hope it is useful and inspires all who read it.I also invite you to participate in this contest. @sriiza, @fantvwiki, @ifatniza

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