Evaluating the effectiveness of a sprayer UAV in controlling cotton bollworm

Abstract

Chemical control is a common way against cotton bollworm (Helicoverpa armigera), a key cotton pest, in developing countries. Therefore, the main objective of current study was to compare the effect of three common sprayers including Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), Boom sprayer and Hand lance tractor mounted sprayer in controlling cotton bollworm. To evaluated two important spray characteristics such as Volume Median Diameter (VMD) and Percent area coverage (AC) on a canopy, labeled Water Sensitive Papers were installed in three different plant positions (top, middle and bottom) and stain of droplets analysed by ImageJ® software. To Assessment of larval H. armigera management, the number of H. armigera larvae was recorded (on 10 random plants per strip-plot) after Thiodicarb (Larvin® 75% WP) spraying (before and 1,3,5, 7 and 14 days after spraying). The mortality was transformed by √x + 0.1 and analyzed by SAS® software. The highest and lowest percentage of coverage belonged to lance sprayer (5.5%) and UAV (2.94%), respectively at the top of plants. Although the spraying characteristics (AC and VMD) of the UAV were not good, the larval mortality on the third day after spraying was 61.1% significantly different from the other sprayer types. UAVs are alternative spraying ways in high-dense cotton canopy fields to save plants and larval management at the same time.

Keywords

• helicoverpa armigera
• imagej®uav
• water sensitive paper