Agriculture Minister attends demo of drone spraying pesticide to drive away locusts

Dadaji Bhuse, Agriculture Minister, and senior officers of Agriculture Department watching as drone with pesticide canister goes up in air, during demonstration in the premises of Botanical Garden of PDKV in Nagpur on Wednesday.

Staff Reporter :

A day after announcing that Maharashtra might use drones to spray pesticides and drive away locusts, Agriculture Minister Dadaji Bhuse attended a demonstration of use of drone in this regard in the city on Wednesday. The demonstration is important as the locust swarms are likely to return and attack crops. The locust swarms from Madhya Pradesh attacked crops, especially the horticulture crops, in Nagpur and Amravati divisions in the past few days.

The farmers in Nagpur, Amravati, Wardha, Bhandara, and Gondia have been hit hard as the locust swarms have destroyed the vegetable crops, fruit orchards, and nearby forests. The locusts damaged orange, mosambi, mango, teak, bamboo, neem, babool, brinjal, cabbage, guava, lemon, spinach, lady’s finger, coriander, maize, methi, Rabi paddy, bor, mohua etc in Katol, Saoner, Narkhed, Kalmeshwar, Ramtek, Nagpur (Rural), Parseoni, and Mouda tehsils in Nagpur district and Tumsar in Bhandara district in the past few days. Further, the locusts have damaged crops in Morshi tehsil in Amravati district, and Ashti tehsil in Wardha district.

After damaging the crops in these areas, the locusts proceeded to Madhya Pradesh. However, the locust swarms are likely to return. Hence, as a preventive measure, Agriculture Minister announced that drones could be used to spray pesticides on crops and drive away locusts. On Wednesday, a demonstration of use of drone for spraying pesticides was held in Botanical Garden premises of Dr Panjabrao Deshmukh Krishi Vidyapeeth (PDKV) here. So far, Agriculture and Revenue Departments have sprayed pesticides with the help of fire tenders in various parts of the region. However, fire tenders faced a problem in case of uneven terrain, tall growth of trees, areas near valleys and river banks, and in remote areas. Hence, it was decided to use drones. Two drones shall be used in the region.

Each drone will carry 10 litres of Chloropyriphos pesticide and water. Each drone can fly up to 10 metres in air and can carry on spraying up to 15 minutes. In one hour, 10 acres of area can be covered, said Jeevan Kumre of the firm Aeronica Advanced Technologies that will deploy the drones. Dr Rahul Patil, MLA from Parbhani; Ravindra Thakare, District Collector; Dr Ravindra Bhosle, Joint Director (Agriculture); Milind Shende, District Superintending Agriculture Officer; Dr D B Undirwade, Head of the Department of Entomology, PDKV; Dr D M Panchbhai, Associate Dean; Vijay Nimje, Sub-Divisional Agriculture Officer; Dr V J Tambe, Dr S L Borkar, Dr Harish Sawai, Dr N V Lavhe, Dr R M Wadaskar were present during the demonstration.