Drones Busy with Spring Plowing, Support Services Must Keep Up
Original title: "Heavenly Troops" Assist Busy Spring Plowing, Supporting Services Must Keep Up
It is once again the busy season for spring plowing and field management. This year, more and more plant protection drones are bustling in the fields, making the once-onerous "one spray, three preventions" work easy and effortless, and greatly saving labor costs. Plant protection drones are becoming ever more impressive, but to maximize their effectiveness, the training of drone pilots and related support services are indispensable, and enormous market potential lies hidden within. See the related practices of Wuxi Hanhe and DJI Innovations.
-- Hanhe: Opening a Hundred 7S Stores, Not Selling Aircraft but Selling Full-Industry-Chain Services --
The photo shows a Hanhe "CD-15" drone conducting "one spray, three preventions" operations in Beitao Village, Piying Township, Xihua County, Henan Province.
"At the Spring Equinox, the wheat rises." Many wheat-growing areas are now seizing the favorable opportunity to carry out "one spray, three preventions" operations for wheat. The more than 5,000 mu of wheat fields in Beitao Administrative Village, Piying Township, Xihua County, Henan Province, were sprayed with pesticides very easily this year, thanks to the "heavenly troops" of the Henan Hanhe Zhoukou Aerial Plant Protection No. 1 Brigade.
On the morning of March 20, in the contiguous wheat demonstration zone of Beitao Administrative Village, this reporter saw several milky-white single-rotor plant protection drones flying smoothly against the wind, and the powerful airflow they generated penetrated and sprayed the pesticide liquid onto the wheat leaves. In just over a minute, the plant protection drone completed one round trip, easily finishing the pesticide spraying work on two mu of land. These plant protection drones are "CD-15" drones manufactured by Wuxi Hanhe Aviation Technology Co., Ltd., capable of operating 400-600 mu per day, and they will undertake the "one spray, three preventions" task for 20,000 mu of wheat in Xihua County.
A staff member from Wuxi Hanhe introduced that the aircraft can carry 15 kg of pesticide, can withstand a level-five wind, can sustain nearly 20 minutes per takeoff, uses a gasoline-oil hybrid power system, can use No. 97 gasoline as fuel, and has a comprehensive power cost of only 0.5 yuan per mu. The operation of "push the stick and it goes, release the stick and it stops, pull the stick and it returns" greatly reduces the pilot's labor intensity, while the one-key translation function also effectively avoids the problems of over-spraying and missed spraying.
On that day, Hanhe Aviation's Henan Branch officially opened in the Xihua County Drone Industrial Park. This is the first branch Hanhe has established nationwide, which also means Hanhe has taken a key step in its layout in Henan. This reporter learned that Henan is not only a major agricultural province but also the province with the greatest subsidy and promotion efforts for plant protection drones, which has made Henan a must-contest battleground for plant protection drone companies. In addition to Henan-based Anyang Quanfeng and Kaifeng Tianxiucai, many plant protection drone companies such as Gaoke Xinnong and XAG have settled in Henan to build bases and compete for a slice of the market.
Shen Jianwen, Chairman of Wuxi Hanhe Aviation Technology Co., Ltd., stated that plant protection drones are not as simple as the aircraft itself; a complete ecological support system must be established. This may be the most costly and least profitable, but it must be done. As a pioneer and leader in domestic plant protection drones, Hanhe does not center on sales and will not sell aircraft directly to ordinary people, but instead uses services to demonstrate value, relying on "7S" stores and using aerial plant protection brigades to provide pesticide spraying services to farmers.
Li Jianzhong, Executive General Manager of Hanhe Aviation, stated that Hanhe will establish 100 "7S" stores nationwide to provide customers with product supply, after-sales service, parts supply, information feedback, pilot training, display and performances, and plant protection solutions. Relying on the nationwide 7S stores and its affiliated aerial plant protection brigades, it will build an integrated online-offline information service system, establish a large aerial plant protection database, and achieve resource co-construction, sharing, and win-win outcomes. At present, Hanhe has established more than 40 "7S" stores nationwide, including 7 in Henan. The "7S" stores will secure unified crop pest and disease control orders and cross-regional operation projects from other areas for the aerial plant protection brigades, providing strong guarantees for the brigades' operations and profitability.
"We welcome market competition; only competition can stimulate vitality. Ultimately, what matters is whether one can profit through market means, what the operating cost per mu is, and whether users can sustain and make money -- that is the most persuasive." Shen Jianwen said. (Reporters Mei Long and Wang Tengfei, text/photo)
-- DJI: Training Ten Thousand Pilots, One Drone Enriches a Family --
Recently, a DJI MG-1 agricultural plant protection aircraft was operating in Jiujiang, Jiangxi Province, to control sclerotinia rot in rapeseed flowers. Photo by Zhang Xiaoxia.
Industrial-grade waterproof and dustproof, unique intelligent memory and power-off endurance functions, plannable routes to adapt to irregular plot operation needs... On March 21, the first product of DJI Innovations, the global leader in consumer drones, entering the agricultural plant protection field -- the MG-1 agricultural plant protection aircraft -- was officially unveiled in Beijing.
At the event site located within Beihang University in Beijing, under the pilot's operation, the MG-1 took off carrying 10 kg of clean water, operating in a serpentine track, and demonstrated functions such as coordinate memory and power-off endurance. Cao Nan, DJI's Agricultural Machinery Sales Director, introduced that the MG-1 is designed with three operation modes: intelligent, manual, and enhanced manual. It can directly plan routes and spray automatically without prior surveying and mapping of farmland; the unique intelligent memory function allows it to automatically remember the coordinate point when the pesticide is nearly exhausted, and after adding pesticide, return to the memory point with one key press to continue spraying; when replacing the battery, the power-off endurance circuit ensures that the MG-1's flight control system, sensor system, and route planning information are unaffected.
It is worth mentioning that the MG-1 agricultural plant protection aircraft has achieved industrial-grade dustproof, waterproof, and anti-corrosion capabilities and can be directly washed with water; the integrated internal circulation cooling system can extend motor life by more than 3 times; the powerful eight-axis power system allows it to land normally even when a single arm fails; the folding design also makes it more convenient to transport.
Professor He Xiongkui, Director of the Plant Protection Machinery and Pesticide Application Technology Center at China Agricultural University, commented: "The MG-1 can operate 40-60 mu per hour, with an operating efficiency more than 40 times that of manual spraying, greatly improving plant protection work efficiency. In terms of the flight control system, DJI's advantages are very obvious."
In addition to the new product, DJI also announced an agricultural strategic layout to train ten thousand pilots. At the exchange meeting, Wang Fan, DJI's Public Relations Director, introduced that DJI plans to implement four major measures in 2016 to build a complete agricultural plant protection drone ecosystem.
DJI will build plant protection demonstration fields nationwide and cooperate with local plant protection stations to establish professional unified pest control plant protection teams, carrying out aerial plant protection operations on 1 million mu-times for major crops, vegetables, and fruit trees nationwide; at the same time, it will support research teams in analyzing operation results and establishing an aerial plant protection database suited to China's national conditions. Second, DJI plans to cooperate with training institutions across the country to train ten thousand professional agricultural plant protection aircraft pilots. In addition, DJI will launch a "Ten Thousand People Plant Protection Entrepreneurship" plan to encourage more knowledgeable and ambitious young people to devote themselves to plant protection work. Eligible users can apply for a "drone unsecured loan" on relevant platforms to purchase the MG-1; after purchasing, users can also receive training at designated schools and obtain another purchase subsidy. DJI will also build a nationwide plant protection information platform to connect the demand and supply sides and reduce communication costs.