Pineapple Crop Fertiliser Application Method: A Preliminary Study on the Performance and Effectiveness of a Boom Sprayer and a Sprayer Drone

Abstract

Fertilisation of pineapple crops can be done by using either the combination of dry and liquid fertiliser or just the liquid fertiliser. A boom spraying machine is often used to apply liquid fertiliser but recently drone spraying has gained popularity among farmers because of its speed and convenience of use in applying chemicals, particularly for pest and disease control. However, the performance and efficacy of drone applications used for fertilisation have yet to be proven. The aim of this study is to evaluate both spraying techniques to observe and compare the performance, which included the effects of fertilisation on crop growth by comparing the plant height and leaf length. A tractor-mounted boom spraying machine with a tank capacity of 400 L equipped with 10 m boom and a 10 L capacity spraying drone with 4 m effective spraying width were used in this preliminary evaluation. The evaluation was conducted in split plots with an area of 0.2 ha with 9000 plants per area each. The performance of both machines was measured in terms of the work rate, effective field capacity and field efficiency. According to the results, the application work rates of the boom spraying machine and the drone were 0.95 ha/h and 3.88 ha/h, respectively. Due to the small chemical tank capacity, the drone application is less efficient, with an effective field capacity of 0.08 ha/h compared to the boom sprayer's 0.29 ha/h, which requires frequent fertiliser preparation to satisfy fertilisation needs. There was no significant difference in crop growth performance between the two applications with a p-value >0.05. Drones have the potential to improve fertiliser spraying activity for pineapple crops, but they must be scheduled more often than boom spraying machines. The mixing method should be improved because of its time-consuming preparative work.