Yeongwol-gun, the only one in the province that is pushing for the 2023 drone demonstration city construction project, is making remarkable results by applying precision smart irrigation systems and drone remote sensing technology to open-field pepper cultivation sites.

From May 18 to June 24, the county introduced drone remote sensing technology to existing manual and smart irrigation systems that rely solely on the experience of farmers in 6,280㎡ of pepper fields in Buksang 3-ri, Nam-myeon, and compared and analyzed water usage and pepper growth data through drone photography.

As a result, it was found that 232.5 liters of water were used per 3.3㎡ in the manual irrigation area under similar growth conditions, while 56.6 liters were used in the smart irrigation area. This was evaluated as a technology that can effectively replace the damage caused by drought and water shortage because it properly identifies the timing of water input and automatically injects it using a moisture sensor.

In addition, it is the first case of applying smart irrigation systems and drone growth diagnosis farming methods to open-field pepper cultivation in Korea, as it can create a growth map that identifies the growth status of crops in the entire cultivation area through drone photography.

Hak-Jin Kim, a professor of Biosystems engineering at Seoul National University, praised the value, saying, "Multi-sensor-based crop monitoring drone applied to this demonstration has contributed to the analysis of various factors that are highly related to crop growth and the reduction of labor." Myeong-seo Choi, the county governor, said, "We hope that this demonstration will set a precedent for drones to expand into the digital agricultural sector and contribute to the commercialization of the drone industry."

Source : https://www.kado.net/news/articleView.html?idxno=1199861, https://www.the-news.co.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=15076