Evaluation of unmanned aerial vehicle for effective spraying application in coconut plantations

Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) pesticide application in recent years owing to its importance such as time saving, reduction in human drudgery and also reduction in pesticides application rate. UAV has a great potential to address the problem involved in manual chemicals spraying in tall crops like coconut plantation where at present operation performed by manual climbing involves lots of drudgery and life risk. The current study aimed to understand the most influencing spraying parameters, such as spray height and spray time of the UAV sprayer on droplet characteristics such as spray droplet size, spray coverage and spray deposition at different layers (spindle, middle and bottom) of coconut tree canopy. The selected spray height (1, 2 and 3 m) and spray time (5, 8 and 11 s) significantly affects (<i>p</i> < 0.05) the droplet size (μm), spray coverage (%) and spray deposition (μl cm^-2). In spray droplet size, the treatment T4, T5, T7 and T8 were recorded recommended droplet size of 50-400 μm in all layer of the coconut tree canopy. In spray coverage, the nearest value for recommended spray coverage of 10-20 % was observed for T1 and T5 treatment in all layer of the coconut tree canopy. The maximum penetration efficiency of 34.41 % had achieved at spray height of 2m and spray time of 8s (treatment T5). Based on performance of selected parameter, the spray height of 2 m and spray time of 8 s (treatment T5) was found best for spraying operation using UAV in coconut tree. The results showed the performance of the UAV offers best alternative for spraying operation on coconut tree and also this system will drastically reduce application time, labour requirement and improved the safety of coconut farmers.