The efficiency of unmanned aerial vehicles application for rapeseed productivity in Ukraine

Abstract

In modern conditions, high-precision technologies, such as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), are the basis for increasing the efficiency of agricultural land use and crop productivity. Nowadays, new technology development needs to be improved, so the study and the implementation of various innovations in this field are quite relevant and important. The research aimed to find effective pesticides and a selection of spraying solution norms to increase rapeseed yield. The least significant difference test was used to separate the means of the dependent variables in response to predictor variables at P ≤ 0.05. It was established that herbicides applied using UAV provided effective protection of crops against cereal weeds. The spraying solution (herbicide) Evolution, together with Amigo Star, contributed to destroy of annual cereals by 94–100%, which was at level of effectiveness for ground sprayer application. The higher yield of rapeseed was 4.08 t·ha–1 for variant with spraying solution by UAV with a consumption rate of 15 L·ha–1 and corresponding indicator reaches 4.13 t·ha–1 with a rate of 200 L·ha–1 for ground-based spraying. The advantage of using UAVs is the quicker application, as well as a lower rate of water consumption for preparing spraying solution, compared to ground spraying.