Aerial Application of Cotton Defoliant

The 26 member HS Shared Aerial Application Drone Team, went to the cotton farms in Changji, Shihezi, and Hami in Xinjiang with 15 DJI MG-1S crop protection drones to spray defoliants on the cotton. Their demonstration impressed the local farmers.

 

 

 

 

"Drone-based spraying leads to even application, less waste, high efficiency, and low costs. For large, orderly, and concentrated cotton plots, a drone can cover 34 hectares per day. For unintegrated cotton fields, a drone can cover at least 27 hectares per day, with a radius of 300 m or more," said Shan Tao, an HS drone operator.

 

 

 

Purpose of operation

 

 

Spray defoliant with MG-1S to defoliate cotton within a certain period of time to facilitate easier machine harvesting and increase revenue.

 

The flat local terrain is suitable for the large-scale spraying of cotton defoliant.

 

 

Operation time	September 15	Operation location	Changji
Operation terrain	Flat	Environmental conditions	Sunny

 

Environmental information

 

Based on the crop conditions, two spraying operations were planned. This is the second operation, and the application information is shown below.

 

Defoliant name	Dosage form	Active ingredients and content	Consumption per hectare
Thidiazuron & diuron	Suspending agent	Thidiazuron: 360 g/L; Diuron: 180 g/L	30 g
Ethrel	Aqueous solution	Ethrel 40%	80 ml

 

Defoliant information

 

 

 

Spraying cotton defoliant requires very uniform defoliant adhesion. As there were some irregular plots at the site, the route planning mode was used for this operation.

 

 

Operation mode	Route planning mode	Flight speed	5 m/s
Flight height	2 m	Operation spacing	4 m
Dosage per hectare	15 L	Sprayer model	Fan-shaped sprayer XR11001

 

Operation parameters 

 

 

 

Result and conclusion

 

 

The HS crop protection team sprayed defoliant on a total of 4,000 hectares of cotton fields, spraying 2,000 hectares in this operation. The result was very good.

 

Yin Bing, a local cotton farmer, said: "It previously took three people several days to spray defoliant on 40 hectares of cotton fields with tractors. This resulted in a yield reduction of up to 20% as the tractors could crush the cotton plants.