China: Drones, AI safeguard late rice field management in central China.

Storyline Drones, AI safeguard late rice field management in central China Drones and smart technology are helping rice farmers in central China's Changsha to gather critical planting information. On this roughly 30-hectare planting area, drones are gathering information during a patrol that typically takes a human one or two hours to complete. Xu Lipu, Algorithm engineer, Zoomlion Smart Agriculture Co., Ltd.: "The drone can fly up to a height of 120 meters and takes only 20 minutes to fully survey the roughly 30 hectares of rice paddies." The drones use multispectral cameras to inspect crops for pest damage, abnormal water levels, or weak growth. The images are transmitted back to a central control area in real time, where cloud-based AI algorithms analyze the data, and generate color-coded rice growth analysis maps. Wang Kairui, Functional Integration Engineer, Zoomlion Smart Agriculture Co., Ltd.: "Our drone's zoom capability can reach up to 100 times or more. That means we can accurately monitor the color and even the spots on every single leaf of the rice plants. Based on this map, we can subsequently apply fertilizer where needed and irrigate areas that are short of water." Thanks to the Lianhua Town Smart Farm, almost two dozen surrounding villages are also using drone and digital technology, covering about 3300 hectares of farmland. [Restrictions: No access Chinese mainland]