Assessment of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) based spraying against pod borer, Helicoverpa armigera (Hubner) in gram
Research Type
Departmental Trail
Experiment Background
Gram (Cicer arietinum L.) is one of the most important
legume food crop after dry bean and dry pea. In India, gram is generally grown as a rainfed crop in the Rabi
season. Gram pod borer (Helicoverpa armigera Hubner) is a key pest of chickpea and responsible for 90 to 95 per
cent damage. The young caterpillars of this pest skeletonizes the leaves, while the grown-up caterpillar
bores into the pods and feeds on the seeds. The losses can be reduced by the timely application of insecticides. In recent years due to shortage of labor, the pests cross the EILs which results in a severe to complete yield loss. The manual spraying of pesticides by using hand sprayes are quite difficult and creat health hazards to the applicants. it also causes non-uniformly spraying and excess spraying and this may cause reduced crop yields. Now a day’s as an alternative to knapsack spraying, Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) is a boon for the farmers for timely and accurate application of insecticides. The UAVs provides a means of more targeted application of the correct dose, especially by using more persistent formulations, thus reducing the losses of pesticidal chemicals. In present days, there is a need to look for better options other than the traditional spraying methods as the UAVs can cover more than 1.2 hectares in one flight and more than 60 hectares in a day. It can spray two to four liters per minute and can be filled twice for one charge. The UAV is highly efficient and can accomplish the task in 15 minutes which would otherwise take a person 1.5 days of work. Therefore, considering the importance of UAV in plant
protection the present investigation is formulated for the
management of pod borer (H. armigera) infesting gram
with the aim to understand the different parameters of
spraying with UAV along with the efficacy of insecticide
against H. armigera through UAV spraying in gram
Experiment Group
Agricultural Entomology
Unit Type
(02)EDUCATION UNIT
Unit
(12)NAVINCHANDRA MAFATLAL COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURE (NAVSARI)
Department
(259)Entomology Department, NMCA, Navsari
BudgetHead
(303/12939/00)303/01/REG/00046
Objective
1. To study the spraying parameters of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle in gram
2. To study the efficacy of insecticide using UAV based sprayer against pod borer infesting gram
Season
Rabi
Location Unit Type
(01)RESEARCH UNIT
Location Unit
(39)MEGA SEED PULSES AND CASTOR RESEARCH UNIT (NAVSARI)