Promising Prospects for Integrated Pesticide-Fertilizer and High-Efficiency Application Equipment
In recent years, with the large-scale migration of rural labor, rural labor costs have increased year by year. Pesticide-fertilizer products that reduce labor intensity, are convenient to apply, save labor and cut costs, along with high-efficiency application equipment, have become hot topics of interest for large-scale growers and agricultural input distributors. Not long ago, at the "2015 New Plant Protection Development Promotion Forum and Henan Hongxing Li'er Biotechnology Co., Ltd. Annual Meeting" held in Changsha, attending experts, large-scale growers and agricultural input distributors exchanged and discussed topics including the "zero growth" target for chemical fertilizers and pesticides, integrated pesticide-fertilizer, and the development of aerial application technology.
Attending representatives believed that against the background of the state vigorously advocating "zero growth" in chemical fertilizer and pesticide use, "integrated pesticide-fertilizer" presents a new concept for China's agricultural input industry, while aerial application technology will play an important role in driving profound changes in future agricultural production.
"The improvement of plant protection machinery and equipment levels is an important means of achieving modern plant protection, and new-type high-efficiency plant protection machinery and equipment is the fundamental way to achieve 'zero growth' in pesticide use. In addition, persistently researching, developing and promoting a batch of new agricultural input technologies and products featuring green, high-efficiency and environmental protection characteristics will also become an important carrier, and 'integrated pesticide-fertilizer' is one of them." Shao Zhenrun, an extension researcher at the National Agricultural Technology Extension Service Center, said at the forum that advancing "zero growth" in pesticide use mainly relies on improving two rates of pesticides: first, improving pesticide utilization rate through promoting pesticide innovation, improving application machinery, developing specialized services and strengthening scientific research and development; second, improving pesticide substitution rate through promoting green prevention and control and developing green prevention and control technologies and products.
"Domestically, more and more enterprises are beginning to attach importance to the combined use of fertilizers and pesticides, merging the two independent agricultural techniques of fertilization and pesticide application into one, simplifying agricultural operation procedures, reducing labor intensity, and enabling fertilizers and pesticides to organically work in synergy to promote plant growth." Li Yi, general manager of Henan Hongxing Li'er Biotechnology Co., Ltd., believed that "integrated pesticide-fertilizer" is not simply mixing pesticides and fertilizers together; it requires more technical support. Pesticide-fertilizer products have advantages such as high efficiency and labor saving, providing an effective solution to the current problems of labor shortage and high labor costs in agricultural production, and have broad development prospects.
"Aerial application technology is an important manifestation of agricultural plant protection modernization. With the migration of rural labor and the development of specialized unified prevention and control, there is an urgent need for high-efficiency application machinery." Sun Xiangdong, general manager of Wuxi Hanhe Aviation Technology Co., Ltd., believed that China's agricultural production pattern is currently transforming from non-standardized to standardized, and the agricultural input industry chain is consequently being restructured. Through standardized services provided by agricultural machinery, agricultural inputs will become supporting elements of agricultural machinery organizations, forming a new pattern in which agricultural machinery stands at the front stage while agricultural inputs and agricultural technology stand backstage. He stated that in the course of modern agricultural development, plant protection drones have advantages such as improving work efficiency, being safe and environmentally friendly, having a high degree of automation and strong usability, but there is also an urgent need to solve issues of stability, reliability, consistency and controllability during application. With the continuous deepening of China's agricultural sustainable development, the concepts of precision agriculture and time-saving, high-efficiency and economical agriculture have placed higher demands on the use of agricultural input products. Aerial application technology is not only a tool and a technology; it will open a new era.