Spraying and Pollination Systems in Precision Agriculture

A special issue of Agronomy (ISSN 2073-4395). This special issue belongs to the section "Precision and Digital Agriculture".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (25 May 2022) | Viewed by 12625

Special Issue Editor


E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Key Laboratory of Modern Agricultural Equipment and Technology, Ministry of Education, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang 212013, China
Interests: agricultural robots

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Spraying and pollination are important to guarantee crop yield and quality. More than 85% of main crops rely on spraying and insect pollination, which increase their yields by more than 10%. At present, spraying and insect pollination are facing separately serious problems such as pesticide waste, environmental pollution, food safety, and the sharp decline in the number of pollinating insects.

Multi-technology integration, such as air-assisted spraying, pesticide adjuvant, electrostatic spraying, target spraying, and variable spraying, is the current developmental trend. Swarm pollination and mechanized pollination, with the support of intelligent technology, are becoming effective means to alleviate the crisis of pollinating insects. These also provide a good foundation for demanding precision agriculture.

This Special Issue, entitled Spraying and Pollination in Precision Agriculture, welcomes new research, comments, and opinion articles covering all relevant topics, including pest and disease detection, efficient pesticide spray, intelligent swarm management, efficient pollen application and other schemes, modeling, applied research, and policy positions.

Prof. Dr. Jizhan Liu
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Agronomy is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • pests and diseases
  • pesticide spraying
  • bee colony management
  • pollen application
  • precision agriculture

Benefits of Publishing in a Special Issue

  • Ease of navigation: Grouping papers by topic helps scholars navigate broad scope journals more efficiently.
  • Greater discoverability: Special Issues support the reach and impact of scientific research. Articles in Special Issues are more discoverable and cited more frequently.
  • Expansion of research network: Special Issues facilitate connections among authors, fostering scientific collaborations.
  • External promotion: Articles in Special Issues are often promoted through the journal's social media, increasing their visibility.
  • e-Book format: Special Issues with more than 10 articles can be published as dedicated e-books, ensuring wide and rapid dissemination.

Further information on MDPI's Special Issue polices can be found here.

Published Papers (3 papers)

Order results
Result details
Select all
Export citation of selected articles as:

Research

Jump to: Review

13 pages, 4594 KiB  
Article
Comparison of Water Sensitive Paper and Glass Strip Sampling Approaches to Access Spray Deposit by UAV Sprayers
by Fiaz Ahmad, Songchao Zhang, Baijing Qiu, Jing Ma, Huang Xin, Wei Qiu, Shibbir Ahmed, Farman Ali Chandio and Aftab Khaliq
Agronomy 2022, 12(6), 1302; https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy12061302 - 29 May 2022
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 2967
Abstract
Target and off-target spray depositions determine the spray’s effectiveness and impact on the environment. A decisive stage in the measurement of spray deposition and drift is selecting an appropriate sampling approach under field conditions. There are various approaches available for sampling spray deposition [...] Read more.
Target and off-target spray depositions determine the spray’s effectiveness and impact on the environment. A decisive stage in the measurement of spray deposition and drift is selecting an appropriate sampling approach under field conditions. There are various approaches available for sampling spray deposition and drift, during the evaluation of ground sprayers used for the UAV sprayer assessment, under field conditions. In this study, two sampling approaches (water-sensitive paper, and glass strip collectors) were compared to analyze spray deposition in target and off-target zones. The results showed a variation in the estimation of the spray deposits among the two applied sampling methods. The results showed that the water-sensitive paper recorded the droplet deposition in the target zone with a range from 0.049 to 4.866 µLcm−2, whereas the glass strip recorded from 0.11 to 0.793 µLcm−2. The results also showed the water sensitive paper recorded an 80.3% higher deposition than that of the glass strip at zero position during the driving flight height 2 m and flight speed 2 ms−1 (T1 treatment). It can be concluded that variation in recorded depositing is due to the sampling material. It is recommended that the confident deposition results, measurement methods and sampling approaches must be standardized for UAV sprayers according to the field conditions and controlled within artificial assessments. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Spraying and Pollination Systems in Precision Agriculture)
Show Figures

Figure 1

25 pages, 6255 KiB  
Article
A Data-Driven Dynamic Obstacle Avoidance Method for Liquid-Carrying Plant Protection UAVs
by Shibbir Ahmed, Baijing Qiu, Chun-Wei Kong, Huang Xin, Fiaz Ahmad and Jinlong Lin
Agronomy 2022, 12(4), 873; https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy12040873 - 2 Apr 2022
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 4109
Abstract
Autonomous sprayer UAVs are one of the most used aerial machines in modern agriculture. During flight missions, some common narrow obstacles appear in the flying zone. These are non-detectable from satellite images and one of the biggest challenges for autonomous sprayer UAVs in [...] Read more.
Autonomous sprayer UAVs are one of the most used aerial machines in modern agriculture. During flight missions, some common narrow obstacles appear in the flying zone. These are non-detectable from satellite images and one of the biggest challenges for autonomous sprayer UAVs in farmland. This work introduces an obstacle avoidance architecture specifically for sprayer UAVs. This architecture has generality in the spraying UAV problem, and it reduces the reliance on the global mapping of farmland. This approach computes the avoiding path based on the onboard sensor fusion system in real-time. Moreover, it autonomously determines the transition of several maneuver states using the current spraying liquid data and the UAV dynamics data obtained by offline system identification. This approach accurately tracks the avoidance path for the nonlinear time-variant spraying UAV systems. To verify the performance of the approach, we performed multiple simulations with different spraying missions, and the method demonstrated a high spraying coverage of more than 98% while successfully avoiding all vertical obstacles. We also demonstrated the adaptability of our control architecture; the safe distance between the UAV and obstacles can be changed by specifying the value of a high-level parameter on the controller. The proposed method adds value to precision agriculture, reduces mission time, and maximizes the spraying area coverage. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Spraying and Pollination Systems in Precision Agriculture)
Show Figures

Figure 1

Review

Jump to: Research

25 pages, 12075 KiB  
Review
Research Progress on Efficient Pollination Technology of Crops
by Shuo Wu, Jizhan Liu, Xiaojie Lei, Shengyi Zhao, Jiajun Lu, Yingxing Jiang, Binbin Xie and Ming Wang
Agronomy 2022, 12(11), 2872; https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy12112872 - 16 Nov 2022
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 4369
Abstract
Pollination is essential to maintain ecosystem balance and agricultural production. Domesticated bee pollination, which is easy to feed and manage, and mechanized pollination, which is not restricted by the environment, are considered the main technical means to alleviate the “pollinating insect crisis”. By [...] Read more.
Pollination is essential to maintain ecosystem balance and agricultural production. Domesticated bee pollination, which is easy to feed and manage, and mechanized pollination, which is not restricted by the environment, are considered the main technical means to alleviate the “pollinating insect crisis”. By analyzing differences in pollination methods for different crops, this review summarizes the research progress for efficient pollination technology from the perspectives of bee pollination and mechanized pollination in fields, orchards, and greenhouses. The selection of pollination method should be based on the physiological characteristics of crops and the actual environmental conditions of natural pollination. The pollination ability of bees is closely related to the status of the bees. Maintaining the pollination ability of bees in a reasonable range is the goal of bee pollination services. Colony state control technology needs to develop in two directions. First, there is a need to develop colony state monitoring technology based on multi-feature information fusion and to explore the self-regulation mechanisms of the colony in response to various factors. Second, based on these self-regulation mechanisms, there is a need to develop a low-cost and non-invasive bee colony state and pollination capacity estimation model, monitoring technology, and equipment based on single feature information. The goals of mechanized pollination are “efficiency” and “precision”. Mechanized pollination technology needs to be developed in two directions. First, the mechanisms of pollen abscission, transport, and sedimentation in different crops and mechanized pollination conditions should be explored. Second, research and development of efficient and accurate pollination equipment and technology based on the integration of multiple technologies such as pneumatic assistance, auxiliaries, static electricity, target, variables, and navigation, are needed. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Spraying and Pollination Systems in Precision Agriculture)
Show Figures

Figure 1

Back to TopTop