Kulgam, Nov 29: The drone technology demonstration has been conducted by the Krishi Vigyan Kendra (KVK) Kulgam for the farmers to adopt the technology to minimise the input cost on various crops.
The ceremony was organised at KVK Pombay under the chairmanship of Vice Chancellor SKUAST Kashmir, Prof Nazir Ahmad.
According to the experts, the drone can spray fungicides in apple orchards in a minimum time over a large chunk of area.
The VC said the spraying drone has the capacity to carry 10 litres and can spray it over one acre of land. “Normally, it takes around 250 liters of chemicals to spray for the same chunk of land.”
“With the drone spray we can use minimum chemicals and the drone will save a lot of time for orchardists as well. People usually do all the work manually, now it’s time to do it through machines or robotics,” he said.
“We started this project here at KVK Kulgam and it will revolutionise the agriculture and horticulture industry, ” he said.
With the passage of time, people will see the major role of mechanisation in the field of agriculture.
“We have to adopt the technology in the agriculture and horticulture sector to impress the youth towards agriculture. Technology boost will increase productivity,” he said.
Manzoor Ahmad KVK head Kulgam said, the drone spray saves about 80-90% of water while spraying, and saves about 80% of labour and pesticide costs.
“It performs uniform spraying and saves more than 80% of the time. Importantly, only one person can handle the drone while in use at the orchard,” he said.
Another official said the project was sanctioned in June this year and the drone is being used for spraying in field crops and is being calibrated for apples.
When asked about how it will benefit the common orchardists he said, “Once a technology is standardised it will be available on subsidized rates for those interested under prevailing government agricultural schemes and SKUAST has a role in its standardisation,” he said.
An official said the area to be sprayed is fixed on a digital map of a drone and it does the spray automatically.
