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 |
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 |
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 |
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.
Source: https://ag.dji.com/case-studies/dji-ag-case-en-cotton
Warn prompt: Τhe content and parameters provided here are just for your reference. You should adjust the operation mode and the parameters and use a correct way to spray your field according to the different weather, the crop characters, the habit or history of using chemicals (you could change other chemicals in case that the resistance occurs), etc. If you are not sure what operation parameters you will choose or not sure about the spraying efficacy, then you should firstly do a small plot test in this field before a big area spray.