Enabling Small-Scale Grower Sugarcane Quality Management with Smartphone and Crop Spraying Drone Technologies

In South Africa, ripeners are aerially applied to sugarcane in large-scale grower fields to improve cane quality. Small-scale growers (SSGs) generally have not experienced these benefits, mainly because of the small fields and their fragmented distribution. The recent commercial approval of crop-spraying drones creates ripening opportunities for SSGs because drones can operate effectively in these small fields. Furthermore, the PurEst® quality management smartphone application can assist these growers with ripening and harvest scheduling decisions. This paper describes the collaboration between researchers, extension specialists, growers, and other industry participants, enabling SSG cane quality management. Sixteen participatory drone ripening demonstration trials and 48 field days were conducted at 11 SSG locations. The first series of field days centred around the concepts of cane maturity assessment and ripening decision-making. Trial fields were then subdivided into unsprayed and ripener treatments and more field days were convened for SSGs to observe the drone spraying. The concluding field days before harvest are centred around ripener efficacy assessment and harvest scheduling. The demonstration trials elicited considerable interest in the available smartphone and drone spraying technologies but also revealed challenges that must be tackled to bridge the gap between demonstration and broader implementation.