Digital farming for more efficient agriculture | Water and fertilizer | Digital farming
The cotton boll period is when cotton farmers are busy, but in the cotton fields of Manas County, Changji Hui Autonomous Prefecture, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, almost no one can be seen.
I saw the plant protection drone shuttling back and forth, carrying out mechanical cotton harvesting and plant protection operations. "We use Beidou Navigation for autonomous operation, which is precise, convenient, and efficient. A drone can complete 500 acres of land work per day." Song Guolin, a large grower in Shangzhuangzi Village, Letuyi Town, Manas County, planted over 2500 acres of cotton, but only needs to go to the field every few days to see the growth. The agricultural machinery professional cooperative in the village has 25 high-power tractors equipped with satellite navigation unmanned driving systems, as well as new equipment such as precision seeders and intelligent pesticide sprayers. "From planting to harvesting, everything is mechanized, so I don't have to worry too much," said Song Guolin.
After the neighboring village villager Zhang Liang transferred the land, he came to Shangzhuangzi Village to work as a pump room administrator. Just in time for watering, he opened the "Huifeng Harvest" app on his phone and activated the electric valve within 3 seconds. Water and fertilizer quickly flowed into the cotton roots along the drip irrigation belt. According to the water demand, the valve opening can also be intelligently adjusted.
Song Guolin is an old master of farming, and used to worry the most about watering. "The earliest time was to carry a shovel and dig ditches to lead water to the ground. Later, drip irrigation was available, but the valves needed manual operation, and solid fertilizers had to be carried to the ground and poured into the water fertilizer tank for mixing. It required a lot of manpower, and I had to do it myself when I was busy." Song Guolin said, now that liquid fertilizer was used, the manufacturer directly poured it into the water fertilizer tank, and the ground was also equipped with automatic valves. A pump room administrator could manage 1000 to 3000 mu of land.
"Through precise water and fertilizer management, the water consumption of cotton from planting to harvesting has been compressed to 360 cubic meters per acre." Zhu Junling, Deputy Leader of the Digital Agriculture Technical Guidance Group of Manas County Agriculture and Rural Bureau, introduced that in the past, manually turning the valve was difficult to control, which could easily lead to water resource waste; Now the mobile phone can display instantaneous data flow, and as long as it exceeds the normal range, it will automatically prompt for water leakage.
In Manas County, each township has a set of equipment that monitors soil moisture, insect infestation, and crop growth. These data will be transmitted to the digital agriculture big data platform located in Chaichang Village, Baojiadian Town. Nearly a hundred agricultural technicians from the county's agricultural technology promotion center and liquid fertilizer manufacturers will provide timely guidance on the field management of farmers based on the monitoring data.
"Take a look at this insect monitoring device. After the insects fall in, they will be dried at high temperatures and fall into the box below, captured by high-definition cameras. We will analyze the photos and if the number of a certain type of insect continues to increase, we need to apply targeted pesticides to kill the insect." Zhu Junling introduced that through the monitoring system, the crop planting process is more informationized, precise, and intelligent.
In order to further cultivate more new farmers who can adapt to the development of digital agriculture, Manas County has also built a digital agriculture training base to provide training on water and fertilizer scientific management knowledge and remote control of water and fertilizer application skills. Since the beginning of this year, there have been 8 large-scale training sessions on the promotion and application of digital agriculture technology, enabling 18000 farmers to become "technology savvy people" in practical digital agriculture technology, and 379 people to obtain new professional farmer qualification certificates.
At present, Manas County has applied digital agriculture technology to 300000 acres of arable land, and plans to build all 1 million acres of arable land in the county into a digital farmland demonstration base within 3 years. Faced with the increasing demand for digital agricultural equipment, Manas County has started construction of the first digital agricultural equipment industrial park in Xinjiang this year, and 11 factories will be completed by the end of August.
