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 |
Environmental information
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 |
Defoliant information
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 |
Operation parameters
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.
