Skip to main navigation menu Skip to main content Skip to site footer
Plant Science Today (PST)

Research Articles

Vol. 12 No. sp3 (2025): Advances in Plant Health Improvement for Sustainable Agriculture

Comparative study on droplet parameters and weed control efficiency under UAV and Knapsack manual sprayer for herbicide application in summer cotton

DOI
https://doi.org/10.14719/pst.8349
Submitted
18 March 2025
Published
30-07-2025

Abstract

A field experiment was conducted during the summer season of 2024 at Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru College of Agriculture & Research Institute, Karaikal, Puducherry to evaluate the impact of different spray volume using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) sprayer and Knapsack Manual Sprayer (KMS) on droplet deposition, density, distribution, drift and weed control efficiency. The experiment involved the application of pre-emergence herbicide namely pendimethalin 1 kg/ha under UAV spray at 25, 37.5, 50 L/ha compared with KMS 500 L/ha and unweeded control in a randomized block design with three replications. The findings indicated that the KMS system at 500 L/ha demonstrated the highest droplet count, whereas the UAV system provided better droplet distribution at a spray volume of 37.5 L/ha. The theoretical field capacity, effective field capacity and Field Efficiency (FE) are higher in UAV spray (7.2, 3.3 and 80.7) respectively, than KMS (0.3, 0.1 and 33.3) respectively. Spray drift got reduced whenever spray volume decreased and vice versa. Whereas, UAV spray volume of 50 L/ha recorded drift at a distance of 5 m, unlike the other spray volumes tested. The UAV system at 37.5 L/ha achieved better weed control effectiveness which was statistically comparable to the KMS system at 500 L/ha. These findings highlight the effectiveness of the UAV spraying system at 37.5 L/ha spray volume in achieving efficient weed control with better droplet distribution. Thus, the UAV spraying system holds considerable potential as a practical and efficient alternative to manual knapsack spraying for herbicide application in summer cotton.

References

  1. 1. U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). USDA's 100th annual agricultural outlook forum: cultivating the future. Washington (DC): USDA; 2024.
  2. 2. Directorate of Economics and Statistics (DoE and S), Department of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare. Annual report on cotton production in India (2022-23). New Delhi: Government of India; 2023.
  3. 3. Directorate of Economics and Statistics. Season and Crop Report. Government of Puducherry; 2020.
  4. 4. Ferrell JA, MacDonald GE, Devkota P. Weed Management in Cotton: SSAGR004/WG003, rev. 4/2020. EDIS. 2020;2020(3). https://doi.org/10.32473/edis-wg003-2020
  5. 5. Singh B, Garg R, Satpal JK, Kumar S. Integrated weed management in BT-Cotton under semi arid conditions - A review. Journal of Agriculture Research and Technology. 2022;47(3):353.
  6. 6. Li Y, Li Y, Pan X, Li QX, Chen R, Li X, et al. Comparison of a new air‐assisted sprayer and two conventional sprayers in terms of deposition, loss to the soil and residue of azoxystrobin and tebuconazole applied to sunlit greenhouse tomato and field cucumber. Pest Management Science. 2018;74(2):448-55. https://doi.org/10.1002/ps.4728
  7. 7. Vijayakumar S, Madireddy H, Bhusarapu SC, Kumar RM, Sundaram RM. Drone application in rice cultivation: Experiences from ICAR-IIRR trails. Indian Farming. 2022;72(12):3-6.
  8. 8. Ahirwar S, Swarnkar R, Bhukya S, Namwade G. Application of drone in agriculture. International Journal of Current Microbiology and Applied Sciences. 2019;8(01):2500-5. https://doi.org/10.20546/ijcmas.2019.801.264
  9. 9. Rejeb A, Abdollahi A, Rejeb K, Treiblmaier H. Drones in agriculture: A review and bibliometric analysis. Computers and Electronics in Agriculture. 2022;198:107017. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compag.2022.107017
  10. 10. Telli K, Kraa O, Himeur Y, Ouamane A, Boumehraz M, Atalla S, et al. A comprehensive review of recent research trends on unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Systems. 2023;11(8):400. https://doi.org/10.3390/systems11080400
  11. 11. Arthanari PM, Paul RA. Herbicide application using drones: advantages and constraints. In: Mishra, JS, Sushilkumar, Rao, AN editors. Technological glimpses on weeds and their management. Jabalpur: Indian Society of Weeds Science; 2022. p. 79-81.
  12. 12. Brandoli B, Spadon G, Esau T, Hennessy P, Carvalho AC, Amer-Yahia S, et al. DropLeaf: A precision farming smartphone tool for real-time quantification of pesticide application coverage. Computers and Electronics in Agriculture. 2021;180:105906. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compag.2020.105906
  13. 13. Yallappa D, Veerangouda M, Maski D, Palled V, Bheemanna M. Development and evaluation of drone mounted sprayer for pesticide applications to crops. In: 2017 IEEE Global Humanitarian Technology Conference (GHTC); 2017 Oct 19. p. 1-7. IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/GHTC.2017.8239330
  14. 14. Pravinsinh PR. Development of an agricultural spraying system for unmanned aerial vehicle PhD [dissertation]. Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana;2019. http://krishikosh.egranth.ac.in/handle/1/5810135539
  15. 15. Mani VS, Malla ML, Gautam KC, Bhagwandas B. Weed-killing chemicals in potato cultivation. Indian Farming. 1974; 23(8):17-18.
  16. 16. Yuan H, Wang G. The relationship between fog droplet size and coverage density and pesticide control effect. Journal of Plant Protection. 2015;6:9-16.
  17. 17. Li X, Giles DK, Niederholzer FJ, Andaloro JT, Lang EB, Watson LJ. Evaluation of an unmanned aerial vehicle as a new method of pesticide application for almond crop protection. Pest Management Science. 2021;77(1):527-37. https://doi.org/10.1002/ps.6052
  18. 18. Meng Y, Lan Y, Mei G, Guo Y, Song J, Wang Z. Effect of aerial spray adjuvant applying on the efficiency of small unmanned aerial vehicle for wheat aphids control. International Journal of Agricultural and Biological Engineering. 2018;11(5):46-53. https://doi.org/10.25165/j.ijabe.20181105.4298
  19. 19. Qin W, Xue X, Zhang S, Gu W, Wang B. Droplet deposition and efficiency of fungicides sprayed with small UAV against wheat powdery mildew. International Journal of Agricultural and Biological Engineering. 2018;11(2):27-32. https://doi.org/10.25165/j.ijabe.20181102.3157
  20. 20. Xiao Z, Dong H, Bai L, Wu DO, Xia XG. Unmanned aerial vehicle base station (UAV-BS) deployment with millimeter-wave beamforming. IEEE Internet of Things Journal. 2019;7(2):1336-49. https://doi.org/10.1109/JIOT.2019.2954620
  21. 21. Derksen RC, Zhu H, Ozkan HE, Hammond RB, Dorrance AE, Spongberg AL. Determining the influence of spray quality, nozzle type, spray volume, and air-assisted application strategies on deposition of pesticides in soybean canopy. Transactions of the ASABE. 2008;51(5):1529-37. https://doi.org/10.13031/2013.25301
  22. 22. Wang G, Lan Y, Qi H, Chen P, Hewitt A, Han Y. Field evaluation of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) sprayer: effect of spray volume on deposition and the control of pests and disease in wheat. Pest Management Science. 2019;75(6):1546-55. https://doi.org/10.1002/ps.5321
  23. 23. Zhu H, Salyani M, Fox RD. A portable scanning system for evaluation of spray deposit distribution. Computers and Electronics in Agriculture. 2011;76(1):38-43. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compag.2011.01.003
  24. 24. Hiremath C, Khatri N, Jagtap MP. Comparative studies of knapsack, boom, and drone sprayers for weed management in soybean (Glycine max L.). Environmental Research. 2024;240:117480. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envres.2023.117480
  25. 25. Karthickraja A, Saravanane P, Poonguzhalan R, Nadaradjan S. Comparison of UAV and knapsack herbicide application methods on weed spectrum, crop growth and yield in dry direct-seeded rice. Indian Journal of Weed Science. 2024;56(3):307-11. https://doi.org/10.5958/0974-8164.2024.00051.6
  26. 26. Ham J, Lim W, Song G. Pendimethalin induces apoptosis in testicular cells via hampering ER-mitochondrial function and autophagy. Environmental Pollution. 2021;278:116835. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envpol.2021.116835
  27. 27. Acar A, Singh D, Srivastava AK. Assessment of the ameliorative effect of curcumin on pendimethalin-induced genetic and biochemical toxicity. Scientific Reports. 2022;12(1):2195. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-06278-5

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.