COIMBATORE: Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU) will soon introduce a drone service for spraying pesticides on crops. The university’s research department has purchased five drones, each costing around Rs 5 lakh, for this purpose.
According to university officials, this is the first time in the country an agri university if offering such a service. “With an objective to save time and address labour shortage, the university has focused on implementing drone service for spraying chemicals such as pesticides, fungicides and herbicides to six major crops, especially paddy, pulses, millets and sugarcanes. Farmers from Tamil Nadu can book drone service by visiting our website www.tnauagricart.com. One drone would be placed in Virudhachalam Research Station, one at Tindivanam and three at Coimbatore” said V Geethalakshmi, Vice Chancellor of TNAU.
She added that the facility will be introduced in a few weeks and efforts are on to get private agri-based drone operating players into the service.
M Ravindran, Director of Research Station and In-charge of Agricart portal in TNAU said, “At present, farmers are using power sprayer and it will take up to three hours to spray pesticides in an acre. With a hand sprayer, it would take up to a day. However, using the drone, an acre can be sprayed with chemicals in 10 minutes. He further said that TNAU will be the first university in the country to bring drone service to farm fields directly.
“The university has played a major role in creating Standard Operation Protocol (SOP) in agri import applications. So far an agri university in Kashmir has brought drones only for a demonstration not directly to the agri field for commercial purposes. Our TNAU is the pioneer in the service. Up to 10 litres of liquid can be stored and sprayed at a time and Rs 800 will be charged for the service in an acre, including manpower,” he added. He said that the university is working to place up to two drones in a district in Tamil Nadu.