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Editor’s note: According to relevant data, by the end of 2023, plant protection UAVs' capacity reached 200,000 units in China. They served an application area of over 2.1 billion mu (140 million Ha), especially with the continued rise in the application to control of rice and wheat pests and diseases. China has become the country with the largest capacity of agriculture drones in the world and the most extensive application area, leading the global aerial application operations in respect of annual operating area, application volume and technical level.
With the gradual popularization of aerial application, problems are also emerging daily, such as the lack of particular pesticides for aerial application, lack of a sound administration system, lack of effective industry or national standards, lack of professional operator team, and satisfactory social service system. As a critical factor in aerial application, the aerial application-oriented particular pesticides remain as one of the problems that need to be solved urgently.
Prime aerial crop protection players have successively upgraded their existing products, or developed new formulations to better match the needs of aerial application scenarios. In addition to making efforts on product and technology, some companies are committed to the whole industrial chain development for aerial application by providing farmers with an integrated ″product + service″ solution.
In light of the existing problems, key players have made suggestions and called for improvement to the administration system as early as possible, wishing to participate in the establishment of effective industry standards or national standards, as well as establishment of a stable and professional pilot organizations. At the same time, the entire industrial chain is required to collaborate closely so as to enable a high-quality development of the aerial crop protection industry.
Recently, AgroPages invited some key players in this field to discuss and analyze the problems and challenges faced by aerial applications, share solutions, practical experiences and forecast the future. These companies include Noposion, Wynca, Syngenta, Bayer CropScience, Guangxi Tianyuan and Jiangxi Zhengbang. In this article, Zhang Long, R&D Director of Noposion shared his insights.
Zhang Long, R&D Director of Noposion
Can you share Noposion’s aerial crop protection industry layout, promotion and application practices? What is the future development plan?
Since 2016, with the rapid development of the aerial crop protection industry in China, the use of agricultural drones for pest and disease control has become a focus of attention among farmers engaged in agricultural production, especially farmers in the wheat, rice, corn, peanut, and cotton growing regions, where the aerial application of crop protection products has covered almost the whole growth period of crops.
From 2016 to 2018, to meet the requirement of the rapid growth of aerial applications, we prioritized the screening of the existing commercially available pesticides in our company, which were lab tested to determine the tank-mix product performance, including the tank-mix suspensibility, particle size distribution, physical stability of tank-mix system (hot/normal/cold storage), chemical stability of tank-mix system (decomposition rate of pesticidal active ingredients), the interfacial chemical and physiochemical performance indicators such as particle size distribution, which are directly aerially applied at low-volume spray after checked to be up technical standard. In this stage of promotion and application, Shenzhen Yuyan Intelligent Co., Ltd of Noposion established three major aerial crop protection service brands: Maiqingsong, Daoqingsong, Heweishi, and Yuyan Intelligent’s Tiantian product for aerial application.
Since 2018, with the expansion of the operation area of aerial application, farmers and distributors have raised higher requirements on the physiochemical properties and interfacial chemical performance indicators of aerial crop protection products. To meet this requirement, our company conducted a series of formula upgrades:
1) Upgrading of the formula process of WDG, which upgrades the existing product formula to a dry suspension process. This enables an increase in the suspension rate from 80%-85% to above 95% and an increase of dispersion in water by 3-5 times to form a stable suspension, being free of precipitation quickly, being free of precipitation, agglomeration and blockage of nozzle, as represented by Manhu (pyraclostrobin·zineb 65%), Kesuicui (tricyclazole 75%), Shuaifeng (spirotetramat·pymetrozine 65%), copper hydroxide series and dimethomorph 80% DF.
2) The development of a number of high-efficiency and low-dosage novel formulations, such as nano-microemulsions, nano-microcapsules, and nano-suspensions, which are of good water dispersibility, high foliar deposition, and longer controlled release. These are represented by abamectin·trifluorobenzene 11% SC, emamectin benzoate 5% ME and cyhalothrin 25% CS, trifloxystrobin·tebuconazole 42% SC and chlorantraniliprole series.
3) Gradual development of products with aerial application functions and synergic effect via optimization of interfacial properties, synergism, and tank-mix compatibility, currently under in-house development.
Concerning the promotion and application of aerial crop protection products, from 2016 to 2024, Shenzhen Yuyan Intelligent of Noposion has established its agricultural service centers to promote its three major aerial application brands - Maiqingsong, Daoqingsong, and Heweishi, which serve more than 10,000 large growers and more than 200 large-scale agricultural cooperatives via the nearly 100 service centers in 37 districts and counties in China. Meanwhile, we are cooperating with large state-owned farms like Shanghai Chuandong Farm, Jiangsu Dazhong Farm and Huafeng Farm, which have served more than 10 million mu of cropland.
Our development plan in aerial crop protection is: 1) To continue the development of pesticide formulations with better interfacial performance, synergism, and tank-mix compatibility while endearing to develop adaptive adjuvants to meet different needs such as control of resistant weeds, plant diseases and insect pests; 2) To continue the deployment of regional Yuyan Intelligent Agricultural Service Center to train and foster Yuyan Intelligent Makerspace to serve large growers with more than 100 mu of planting area(6.7 Ha), such as provision of whole course crop protection service covering wheat, rice and corn crops in the Jianghuai River Basin as well as citrus and vegetable in the provinces of Shandong, Hainan, Guangxi and Sichuan.
What are Noposion’s challenges and solutions in the development, production, and application of aerial crop protection products? What are the major technical difficulties that need be solved urgently?
The existing challenges in the development of aerial crop protection products are:
1) Upgrading of the existing formula, which urgently requires new nanomaterials, encapsulation materials, adjuvants like surfactants and synergists, because the existing commercial adjuvant system cannot fully meet the needs.
2) The restriction of the thickeners of the low-content suspensions, which generally use xanthan, but the high content of xanthan gum is field-diluted from high concentration, thus causing blockage of nozzle by the formulations.
3) Upgrading of the existing product formulas is mainly concentrated on significant products, which cannot cover all commercially available formulation products. Hence, upgrading a single product does not have an overall significance.
In the process of production of aerial crop protection products, the following significant problems need to be solved: 1) Upgrading of suspended particle size, which can be achieved by using domestic equipment to extend grinding time at much higher energy consumption of the running of domestic equipment, leads to a low cost performance ratio, whilst the price of imported grinding equipment is relatively expensive and not all suspension agents are processed by imported equipment at this stage; 2) Due to the high dosage of thickeners such as xanthan gum in low-content suspension agents, nozzles are blocked, which generally requires filtration, thus increasing cost of production; 3) After the solid formulation process is upgraded to the dry suspension process, a high tower facility is needed, which requires high spending on equipment and is subject to strict environmental regulation, whilst cross-production operations in a same production line are pretty complicated, for which reason manufacturers are not very willing to implement this kind of upgrade.
Looking at the entire industry chain or aerial application ecosystem, what issues must be solved urgently to facilitate the industry development towards a new level? What are your expectations and recommendations to government and industry players?
In my view, there are two most significant problems in the aerial crop protection industry:
Unavailability of China’s state registration and administration system governing aerial application of crop protection products. In the recent years, to ensure the compliance of formulation products, the leading formulation manufacturers tried to use the registration system of the Japanese aerial crop protection industry, having cooperated with the National Aviation Crop Protection Innovation Alliance in the promotion of registration of aerial application of crop protection products, but the pesticide administration and registration authorities like the Pesticide Administration Department and the Institute for the Control of Agrochemicals of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs (ICAMA) were not optimistic enough, leading to a failure in promotion of implementation of this system.
Lack of practical industry standards or national standards in China. From 2016 to 2024, the industry associations represented by the China Crop Protection Industry Association (CCPIA）and China Association of Pesticide Development & Application (CAPDA）prepared a large number of group industry standards as applicable to aerial application, covering pesticides, adjuvants, crops for application, spraying equipment and drone operators. However, the standards which are put in place only include: Nano Pesticide Quality Standard Compilation Criterion (NY/T 4451-2023), Wettability Evaluation Methods and Recommendation of Dosage of Pesticide Tank-Mix Adjuvant (NY/T 4419-2023) and Evaluation Method for Deposition of Pesticide Tank-Mix Adjuvant (NY/T 4418-2023). This indicates a serious lack of effective industry standards.
Can you predict the future development trend of the aerial crop protection industry sector?
Here is our prediction for the next 3-5 years:
With the increase of the loading of drones and the improvement of spraying, the research and development of granules and pills with slow-release and controlled-release pills for aerial application as well as development of special fertilizers are expected to gradually become one of the major research and development directions.
In the field crop growing region, the agricultural drones will be a ″flying sprayer″ that will be used by comprehensive and professional services to be outsourced by large growers, instated of being purchased and used by large growers themselves, which was the case in the past; the regional features of application and the professionalism of the service providers, cost of service and cost of pesticide products will become the key factor for the survival of the regional service providers or service teams, whilst the crop protection drones will subside and become a tool in the comprehensive service system.
In the cash crop and fruit tree regions, with the expansion of service volume and accumulation of experience, especially in the potato planting area and Hainan’s high-yield planting area, crop protection drones will become a key operation tool for farmers, for who several professional service teams may emerge.
ICAMA of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs still takes a wait-and-see attitude towards registering aerial crop protection pesticides, and may not initiate registration for the time being.
This interview was published in AgroPages '2024 Formulation&Adjuvant Technology' magazine. Click the following picture to Read/Download.
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