How do large-scale grain growers choose plant protection machinery?
“I want to let the ‘Flying Tigers’ take off and bring the ‘rice planthoppers’ down.” At the end of August, right at the critical juncture for preventing and controlling diseases and pests in late rice, at the Guobing Agricultural Machinery Cooperative in Chuanxing Village, Paitou Township, Xiangtan County, Hunan Province, large-scale grain grower Zhang Aiguo was busy overhauling plant protection aircraft. He gave his own agricultural aircraft plant protection team a resounding name: “Flying Tigers”.
After some “tinkering”, Old Zhang, who knows a bit about mechanical technology, got plant protection aircraft flying above the rice fields. After the first pesticide application on the late rice, the insect-killing effect was obvious, and other “service orders” also came to his door. Seeing that the “Flying Tigers” had great potential, Old Zhang planned to call in several more plant protection aircraft by mid-September for a second pesticide application, so as to truly and efficiently “snatch grain from the mouths of insects”.
Current application status: large-scale grain growers explore the use of plant protection machinery
Hunan is the “number one rice province”, but rice also suffers from the invasion of diseases and pests, and many places in Hunan have once endured the piercing “pain of insect disasters”.
In 2010, Hunan Province lost 462 million jin of rice to a single disease, southern rice black-streaked dwarf disease. In Liuyang City alone, agricultural insurance paid more than 14 million yuan for more than 30,000 mu of rice fields that failed to harvest. Even in the past two or three years, rice losses due to disease and pest disasters have reached as much as 500,000 tons each year.
Last year was spent fighting drought, this year is spent preventing insect disasters. This year’s special weather of “not hot in midsummer, not cool in late autumn” has made farmers feel even more the terror of “the insects are here”. For middle and late rice in Hunan, continuous rainy weather brings a high risk of severe outbreaks of sheath blight, rice blast and rice false smut. For example, sheath blight is worse than last year, with the current affected area at 20.45 million mu, an increase of 6.6% over the same period last year; rice blast poses an extremely high risk of disaster in some old disease areas and areas with large planting areas of susceptible varieties.
“It can thus be seen that if diseases and pests are not well controlled, there will be disaster; if they are well controlled, it is disaster reduction. To snatch grain from the mouths of insects in late rice, doing a good job in rice disease and pest prevention and control is the key measure to achieve this goal.” said Ou Gaocai, director of the Hunan Plant Protection and Quarantine Station. In the process of preventing and controlling diseases and pests, plant protection work needs the support of advanced agricultural equipment. At present, the utilization rate of plant protection mechanization in Hunan is still relatively low, and there is still great room for development.
A relevant person in charge of the Hunan Provincial Agricultural Machinery Bureau told reporters that among the six links of full mechanization, the rate of mechanical plant protection is relatively lower. At present, more than 50 service organizations have purchased 60 single-rotor models and 40 multi-rotor models, with an operating area of only 280,000 mu-times.
How to mobilize farmers to carry out mechanized plant protection? The approach of the Xiangtan County Agricultural Machinery Bureau is to mobilize large-scale growers to provide demonstration and leadership. Zhang Aiguo was the first person in Xiangtan to “eat the crab”. In April last year, he spent 210,000 yuan to buy Xiangtan’s first agricultural micro plant protection aircraft. In that year alone, it completed operations on more than 8,300 mu, with income of nearly 200,000 yuan. After deducting all costs, net profit was nearly 100,000 yuan. After getting an initial taste of success, Old Zhang took a fancy to the potential “aerial plant protection” market and wanted to buy several more aircraft. But because the cost was too high, within one year he ordered the main units and parts needed for 30 micro agricultural plant protection aircraft in 3 batches and assembled them himself. At present, he has successfully assembled 4 units.
The 5 plant protection aircraft of the “Flying Tigers” showed their prowess in this year’s battle to prevent and control diseases and pests in late rice. In early August, Zhang Aiguo sent all five “Flying Tigers” into action, responsible for plant protection operations on more than 2,000 mu of rice of the cooperative. In Zhang Aiguo’s view, plant protection aircraft have many advantages: first, they “save time”, with relatively high operating efficiency, able to spray one mu in 2 minutes, with daily operating time reaching 4—5 hours, and completing an operating area of 150—350 mu; second, they “save labor”, as the use of unmanned plant protection aircraft can greatly improve efficiency and reduce labor costs by twenty or thirty yuan per mu. At the same time, the use of plant protection aircraft can also prevent workers from suffering heatstroke and poisoning in hot weather; third, they “save liquid”, as under normal climate conditions and when the operator has good skills, pesticide application is uniform and saves liquid medicine, the quality of application is relatively good, and the control effect is guaranteed.
Farmers’ concerns: how to curb high costs and high failure rates?
Although plant protection aircraft “save time, save labor and save liquid”, one important aspect that makes Old Zhang unable to “save worry” is the relatively high purchase cost, which is why Old Zhang resorted to this inferior solution and had no choice but to buy parts and assemble the complete machines himself.
The Hunan Plant Protection and Quarantine Station carefully did the accounts: the market price of a single-rotor model is 150,000—220,000 yuan, and that of a multi-rotor model is 40,000—240,000 yuan, with a general service life of about 300 hours, while the operating cost per mu is 14—18 yuan, 30—40% higher than the operating cost of other pesticide application machinery. Therefore, the service life is short and the operating cost is relatively high.
And if one purchases plant protection aircraft that have not been appraised or “buys parts and assembles the whole”, although the cost is lower, it brings uncontrollable safety hazards. Take Old Zhang for example. Since the beginning of this year, 3 plant protection aircraft, due to improper control, crashed head-on into utility poles, and he had to spend time repairing them.
Chen Yuehua, section chief of the Pesticide and Equipment Section of the Hunan Plant Protection and Quarantine Station, said that according to surveys, taking agricultural unmanned plant protection helicopters as an example, various models in Hunan all have relatively high failure rates. Relatively speaking, single-rotor fuel-powered machines have a higher failure rate than multi-rotor electric machines, and the fuel-powered machines of some enterprises have an especially high failure rate. According to preliminary statistics in Hunan, there were more than 300 instances of field operation aircraft accidents. One service organization bought a multi-rotor plant protection aircraft, but unexpectedly the remote control system failed on the first day of pesticide application.
Behind the failures lies the weakness of plant protection aircraft research and development. There is a severe shortage of talent in the research, development and application of agricultural unmanned plant protection helicopters. Existing researchers and flight controllers basically come from model aircraft enthusiasts, which inevitably leads to certain defects in the products. The production capacity of 5 enterprises in Hunan producing agricultural unmanned plant protection helicopters is about 1,000 aircraft per year, but currently only the YG—1 and 3ZD—10A models developed by Hunan Bolian Aviation Technology Co., Ltd. have passed “new product appraisal”.
Therefore, the research, development, promotion and application of agricultural unmanned plant protection helicopters attracted the attention of Hunan’s senior leadership. Xu Shousheng, Secretary of the Hunan Provincial Party Committee, and Governor Du Jiahao went to field pesticide application operation sites for investigation and respectively issued special instructions to support enterprise research and development and support professional organizations in application. Under the government’s promotion, local standards were issued. China’s first local standard for ultra-low-altitude remote-controlled flight plant protection machines was issued in Hunan at the end of last year. With industry-university-research collaboration, core technology projects are now in place. The already submitted “Research and Demonstration Promotion of Key Technologies for Precision Operation Agricultural Unmanned Plant Protection Helicopters” has been listed as a major core technology project in Hunan Province’s science and technology tackling program. With joint training, operators are now available. Hunan agricultural plant protection departments have established unmanned helicopter operator training bases with Hunan Vocational College of Aeronautics and Hunan Biological and Electromechanical Polytechnic, and the first training session now has 110 trainees.
In order to reduce farmers’ aircraft purchase costs, in 2014, the agricultural unmanned plant protection helicopter developed in Hunan was the first in China to pass Ministry of Agriculture approval and enter the national agricultural machinery subsidy catalog, enjoying an agricultural machinery subsidy of 50,000 yuan per aircraft. Some cities and counties across the province added 30,000—60,000 yuan in second-level fiscal subsidies, and Changsha, the provincial capital, raised the county-level second-level additional fiscal subsidy to 100,000 yuan.
Only in this way can plant protection machinery truly save worry after saving time, labor and liquid, and “fly” better.