Drone Technology a Boon for Crop Health Monitoring to Deal with Diseases

If the crop is affected by two or three diseases at the same time, a drone equipped with the sensor can easily detect all the affected areas and provide data images to the farmers, who quickly take steps to address this issue to save the plants.

New Delhi: Drone technology has turned into a boon for crop health monitoring systems to deal with crop diseases, and find the actual status of nitrogen and soil moisture conditions in agriculture fields, the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI) said. Mentioning drone technology in the agricultural sector, Dr Rabi Narayan Sahoo, Principal Scientist, Indian Agricultural Research Institute, told ETV Bharat, "Health monitoring of crops is essential for good produce and growth of the agriculture sector. We can use different sensor devices in drones to monitor crops' health, which provides us inputs about diseases in crops, water condition status and nitrogen deficiencies in the plants."

"After receiving these inputs from drones, farmers easily understand what to do next for better crop growth," Sahoo pointed out. "If a crop is affected by two or three diseases at the same time, the sensor can easily detect all the affected areas and provide data images to the receiver, which can be monitored and helps to quickly take steps to address this issue to save the plants."

Talking about the benefits of drone technology, Dr Sahoo pointed out, "Drone technology is more helpful for farmers in crop monitoring, especially during bad weather and cloudy conditions. It provides clear data of the agriculture fields to farmers for monitoring."Although several farmers use satellite data to monitor crop growth, sometimes it is not effective because of weather conditions drones fly very close to farm fields so it is capable of providing accurate data captured by it which helps the crop management system to improve the growth of the produce.

"Drone technology helps to do accurate field mapping to understand the level of nitrogen and moisture in the soil, too," the Principal Scientist said. IARI has been working on drone technology to develop an effective method to monitor crop health. "Farmers already use drones to spray in agricultural fields, which not only saves water used in the spray but reduces risks to the farmers' health compared to manual spraying methods," Sahoo added.