China Farmers’ Harvest Festival丨UAVs irrigate the fields, drones spread pesticides…this is how farmers farm now!

The Chinese Farmers' Harvest Festival is the first national festival established for farmers. It was established in 2018 and is held every year on the "Autumnal Equinox". The establishment of the "Chinese Farmers' Harvest Festival" will greatly mobilize the enthusiasm, initiative, and creativity of hundreds of millions of farmers, and enhance their sense of honor, happiness, and gain. Holding the "Chinese Farmers' Harvest Festival" can showcase the great achievements of rural reform and development, and also showcase China's agriculture-based tradition since ancient times. What is your impression of Chinese agriculture? Is it "shoulder-carrying" by manpower? Or is it simple tractor farming? Then you are "out"! Our current agriculture is very powerful! "Black technology" is emerging in an endless stream!

Anti-aircraft water cannon to irrigate the land?

What is this doing? Is it an anti-aircraft gun exercise? Sorry, this is an agricultural irrigation spray gun! Fully automatic operation, almost full terrain coverage, water and energy saving, it is a magic weapon for modern sprinkler irrigation agriculture.

Driverless tractors?

With a cool appearance and advanced technology, the unmanned tractor moves freely on the vast farmland under the guidance of the Beidou navigation system and a series of sensors. With it, farmers can efficiently complete the sowing and harvesting tasks with just a click of their fingers.

Drones must have a front

Unmanned tractors are always bound by the terrain, and irrigation spray guns can only be fixed on the base, but agricultural drones that can fly freely in the sky are not bound by these constraints! It can quickly and automatically spray pesticides and monitor pests and diseases over a large area, and can be said to be the mechanical patron saint of agriculture.

What to do with straw?

After the harvest, there are pieces of straw left on the ground that are difficult to deal with. Burning is absolutely not an option, so what should we do? Let our three brothers in straw processing solve it~

First is the grass rake, which uses a cool rotating rake to collect the scattered straw;

The baler comes on next, swallows the straw, compresses it, bundles it, and spits it out. The square pieces of straw stay neatly on the vast land.

The last to clean up the site is the loader. Its gripper is extremely flexible, and it collects and transports the straw pieces to the processing site, where they may be turned into biogas, organic fertilizer, or used for power generation. The straw will continue to play a role.

The happy life of "Second Brother"

If we only have grains and vegetables, that is far from enough. Meat is also an important agricultural product on our table. Our pig farm has changed the stereotype of being "dirty, messy and poor" in the past and created a comfortable new environment for the "pig brothers".

Automatic monitors along the track monitor each pig's body temperature, food intake and other data.

The built-in "pig face recognition" system can report the condition of sick pigs to monitoring personnel at any time, automatically analyze the cause of the disease, prescribe the right medicine, and nip the infectious disease in the bud.

The refined feeding of the feeding robot and the telescopic semi-limited pig pen can ensure that each pig can eat individually, achieving "accurate to gram" feeding. Each pig can get balanced nutrition, and the weight difference of pigs in the same pen can be reduced to within 5%!

Do you think this is the end? Take a look at how farmers in Xinjiang grow cotton!

Xinjiang is China's main cotton-producing region, with concentrated cotton fields and large-scale planting. With the use of agricultural automation and intelligence, especially with the help of aerospace equipment such as the Beidou satellite navigation system, the high-resolution satellite observation system, and the Fengyun meteorological satellite, cotton production in Xinjiang is becoming highly mechanized, and all kinds of "smart" agricultural machinery can be seen busy in the fields.

Sowing: Beidou "leads the way" and uniformity

During the spring ploughing season, the seeder driver only needs to set the machine offset value, working width and other data according to the sowing requirements on a high-horsepower tractor equipped with Beidou's "automatic navigation assisted driving and operation system". The seeder can then automatically drive along the planned route under the guidance of the Beidou navigation system, accurately and without error lay out straight cotton mulch with even row spacing, creating a spectacular scene.

▲The picture shows a tractor driven by automatic navigation assisting spring ploughing and sowing in Xinjiang. Source: Xinhua News Agency

In the past, when sowing, you had to hold the steering wheel with both hands and rely on your eyesight and experience to spread the mulch and drip irrigation tape as straight as possible. Today, the seeding machine equipped with the Beidou system is much more efficient than before. Unmanned driving saves time and labor, and the sowing quality is significantly improved.

▲In the cotton field of the Communist Youth League Farm of the Sixth Division of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, a multifunctional integrated unmanned precision seeder equipped with the Beidou navigation system is sowing in the field. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Wang Fei

Management: Satellite remote sensing helps "watch the fields"

Xinjiang's cotton production has entered the era of big data. Relying on satellite remote sensing technology, real-time acquisition, real-time calculation and real-time feedback of cotton farming information can be achieved through "satellite + big data + artificial intelligence".

Satellite remote sensing images can be used to quickly acquire and analyze agricultural information such as the growth, drought conditions, and nutrients of cotton fields in different ranges.

At different growth stages of cotton, satellite remote sensing monitoring results and agricultural technical services can provide targeted guidance and decision-making opinions for field management such as water and fertilizer regulation, pest and disease control, and leaf removal and ripening.

Picking: Intelligent machine picking, high energy throughout the process

When it comes to cotton harvesting season, cotton pickers equipped with Beidou system terminals can accurately locate cotton ridges and harvest efficiently. The staff who manages agricultural machinery said that this method has greatly reduced the rate of flower drop and increased the clean cotton picking rate by 3%.

▲A cotton picker is performing efficient cotton picking operations in a cotton-producing county on the northern slope of the Tianshan Mountains in Xinjiang. Source: Xinhua News Agency

With the rapid promotion of mechanized cotton picking in China, the rate of mechanized cotton picking in Xinjiang has increased year by year, from 27% in 2017 to 38% in 2018, and reached 42% in 2019. The picking process not only realizes the replacement of manpower by machinery, but also the domestic cotton picking and baling machine equipped with an intelligent detection system, which also realizes the integration of cotton picking, cotton collection, baling, ejection and bag throwing.

▲The harvesting scene of the domestic cotton picking and baling machine

Sowing, management, harvesting and storage, the "black technology" of smart agriculture makes the entire process of Xinjiang cotton production full of "hard core". The world's top Xinjiang cotton is a gift from unique natural conditions. Thanks to the help of "black technology", this Xinjiang cotton with a high "scientific" content has become more pure white and beautiful.

▲In Layidan Village, Wuluquele Town, Awati County, Xinjiang, a large cotton picker is picking cotton in the cotton field. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Shadati

Thumbs up for China’s agriculture’s “black technology”!

Comprehensive sources: People's Daily Online, Xinhua News Agency, etc.