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China Technology

China Drone Attack on Crop-Eating 'Monster' Shows 98% Kill Rate (bloomberg.com) 39

Posted by msmash from the how-about-that dept.
An army of drones deployed to fight a crop-devouring pest in a southern area of China has recorded a mortality rate of as high as 98%, according to the manufacturer. From a report: XAG, a Guangzhou-based drone maker, teamed up with Germany's Bayer Crop Science in a drone swarm operation to kill the fall armyworm in China's Guangxi region. The autonomous devices, loaded with low-toxicity insecticide, have also successfully managed the pests in a government-led operation in the southwest province of Yunnan, XAG said. "It is the 'crop-devouring monster' that attacks over 80 crop varieties," XAG said in a statement Monday. Most farmers resort to traditional insecticide sprayers, which not only fail to move fast enough against the "ravenous, fast-moving fall armyworm" that can fly up to 100 kilometers in one night, but also expose them to dangerous chemicals, it said.

The fall army worm, a crop-devouring pest, has spread from the Americas to Africa and Asia, gorging on rice, corn, vegetables, cotton and more. Since arriving in China, it has advanced north, affecting 950,000 hectares of crops in 24 provinces as of mid-August, including parts of Hebei, Shaanxi and Shandong, according to an official report published late last month. Outbreaks at 90% of the affected areas are now under control, the report said.
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China Drone Attack on Crop-Eating 'Monster' Shows 98% Kill Rate More

China Drone Attack on Crop-Eating 'Monster' Shows 98% Kill Rate

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  • About Time (Score:3)

    by Tempest_2084 ( 605915 ) on Tuesday September 03, 2019 @03:16PM (#59153586)
    It's about time we gave China a destructive pest instead of the other way around. (I kid, I kid).

    I honestly never thought about using drones this way, sort of like a mini crop duster. Very interesting.

  • conclusions: (Score:5, Funny)

    by avandesande ( 143899 ) on Tuesday September 03, 2019 @03:23PM (#59153650) Journal
    ~98% of the drones are dead
    ~army worms can fly 100km with no wings which exposes them to dangerous chemicals

    Anything else?

    • I think that about sums it up.

      Wish I had mod points (+1 funny)

    • I came here to post pretty much the same thing, though your addition of the second item explains how they were able to reach the drones.

      I guess nuking them from orbit really is the only way to be sure, since that is just out of the 100km range... they could be evolving fast though.

      RIP (Pieces) drones, we hardly knew ye.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by DavenH ( 1065780 )
      Thank you. I had to reread the summary like six times to parse properly. Poor writing!

    • Good catches. I liked the part about crop-eating drones...

      "The autonomous devices, loaded with low-toxicity insecticide, have also successfully managed the pests in a government-led operation in the southwest province of Yunnan, XAG said. "It is the 'crop-devouring monster' that attacks over 80 crop varieties,""

    • They must be silk-producing/tent-building caterpillars if they're taking out drones. Unless the adult moths are swarming the drones and downing them by clogging the rotors with their dead.

  • They haven't learned anything (Score:3)

    by jbmartin6 ( 1232050 ) on Tuesday September 03, 2019 @03:42PM (#59153758)
    You would think they would be more aware of the dangers [wikipedia.org] in trying to wipe out some species.

    By April 1960, Chinese leaders changed their opinion due to the influence of ornithologist Tso-hsin Cheng who pointed out that sparrows ate a large number of insects, as well as grains. Rather than being increased, rice yields after the campaign were substantially decreased. Mao ordered the end of the campaign against sparrows, replacing them with bed bugs, as the extermination of sparrows upset the ecological balance, and insects destroyed crops as a result of the absence of natural predators. By this time, however, it was too late. With no sparrows to eat them, locust populations ballooned, swarming the country and compounding the ecological problems already caused by the Great Leap Forward

  • Maybe? (Score:3)

    by kqc7011 ( 525426 ) on Tuesday September 03, 2019 @03:43PM (#59153762)
    When I read " low-toxicity insecticide" and China in the same paragraph, I start to wonder what the applicators consider low toxicity.
    • "I love the smell of Napalm in the morning. Smells like dead monster herbivores that can fly 100km without wings."
    • It's not toxic to the drone. It kills everything else.

  • an oxymoron (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Chromal ( 56550 ) on Tuesday September 03, 2019 @03:50PM (#59153786)
    "Low-toxicity insecticide," or in other words, where have I heard that claim before? Oh yes, from massive industrial chemical firms like Monsanto-Bayer. Or, stated differently, it's so safe they've neglected to even mention which one it is so that readers can research and evaluate for themselves the strength of the science upon which the claim is based.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      Agreed. This just replaces manned spray planes with unmanned spray planes. A "real" automated solution would be bots that visually inspect plants for critters and zap or squash them when found.

    • Low-toxicity pesticides seems to be an established concept in UN's Food and Agriculture Organization resources [fao.org] (document search hint "least/less/highly toxic") and university resources [ucanr.edu], used to denote pesticides which cause minimal harm to non-targets such as humans and wildlife. You seem to have a chip on your shoulder for so readily blaming others for that which you do not bother looking up.

      A specific pesticide isn't mentioned -- neither in the article nor its references -- presumably because China's Inst

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Chromal ( 56550 )
        Yes, I'm sure it's less toxic than other things but that doesn't make it non-toxic. What are the long-term ecological impacts? What are the impacts of persistent/chronic low-level exposure meted out over years? Oh, they didn't study did? Then how do they claim know? For all we know, it's what's helping kill off the bats through a long chain of consequence. What does wiley.com consider 'Low toxicity?" Ah yes, products such as "Pyrethrins." Let's see... "...the use of pyrethrin in products such as natural ins

        • Yes, I'm sure it's less toxic than other things but that doesn't make it non-toxic.

          No one has claimed that the pesticides are non-toxic, just less toxic than typical pesticides. Don't let "good" be the enemy of "perfect."

          What are the long-term ecological impacts? What are the impacts of persistent/chronic low-level exposure meted out over years? Oh, they didn't study did? Then how do they claim know? For all we know, it's what's helping kill off the bats through a long chain of consequence.

          Products are tested through the scientific method, which cannot prove a negative. Studies have to determine lethal doses and continuously fail to show significant harmful effects, then regulatory agencies and the scientific community can regard the pesticide/medicine/treatment/foodstuff as safe within resonable doubt. That's how our evidence-based regulatory society curre

  • -until I saw it was still using pesticide. I assumed they had made something that would kill pests without spraying pesticide all over their food.

    Though part of me also expected a dark twist where it was going to be killing humans stealing from fields....

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by EvilSS ( 557649 )

      Though part of me also expected a dark twist where it was going to be killing humans stealing from fields....

      You could. Just replace the insecticide with a chemical nerve agent. Preferably one that doesn't persist like VX. After all, they are basically just insecticides for people.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by HiThere ( 15173 )

      I've read of a ground based robot pest exterminator that used live steam...which probably means boiling water by the time it got that far from the nozzle.

      OTOH, perhaps that would be too heavy to fly.

    • -until I saw it was still using pesticide. I assumed they had made something that would kill pests without spraying pesticide all over their food.

      Though part of me also expected a dark twist where it was going to be killing humans stealing from fields....

      The pesticide could be a BTK variant. Though to increase the effectiveness of BTK based pesticides some substances that are slightly toxic until rinsed off could be used. It is the larval stage of these moths that does the damage and is susceptible to the application of BTK so to increase the footprint of BTK there might be some additives which makes the bacteria stick to moths and spread some of it to the egg clusters that they lay after flying to other locations. Using drones to selectively spray insect

    • It is hard to develop resistance to a metal spike through the head. Drones with small stabby thing would be metal as hell.

  • It won’t take many generations of army worm for that percentage to start plummeting, unless they’re very careful.

    So I’m guessing they don’t mention the insecticide (although I’m gonna guess Bt) because they don’t want some company’s stock price to start plummeting.

  • We need to build swarms of robots to kill pests and weeds while not poisoning the crops they are supposed to protect!

    • We need to build swarms of robots to kill pests and weeds while not poisoning the crops they are supposed to protect!

      Most of the problems with the use of low toxicity pesticides like BTK is accuracy of application. Drones using AI with the ability to target pockets of harmful infestation could go a very long way in keeping down the indiscriminate kill of other insects that are effected by BTK. As far as using drones to spray DDT or other high toxicity chemicals selectively, it is rather the same as using strategic battlefield nuclear weapons. We currently use crop dusting technology, which in a way is like using an ICBM w

  • Everyone knows you deal with the fall army worms by unleashing wave after wave of Chinese needle snakes. They'll wipe out the worms.

  • I've been considering using tech against the invasive anaconda destroying the Everglades.

    First I thought maybe giant mesh you could electrify like a giant bug zapper. Obviously with a motion sensor and camera so you could verify the intended target.

    Then I thought maybe little remote controlled rabbits ( that had a body temp) that could explode , or better yet release a poison and be reused.

    Then i thought maybe just the anaconda's favorite prey, with a poison capsule inside (peta would shit, and a mountain

  • Invasive insects undergoing initial expansion in a new biosphere are very difficult/impossible to control; maybe with widescale aerial (airplane) spraying as undesirable as that is. Drones are an idea but I can't see this scaling to broadacre crops - drones patrolling thousands of hectares? They wouldn't go fast enough to stop the caterpillars from causing damage.

  • Hong Kong protesters next?
  • At Kalele Farm, located in Kabwe, Zambia, fall armyworms were successfully defeated on 30 hectares of heavily infested cornfield. The farm manager thought his maize crops couldn’t stand a chance against the pests and decided to place a bet on new tech. They utilised the spraying drones to apply chemical treatment twice, and the result was quite satisfying as a yield loss was avoided. From Zambia to China, Drones Unleashed to Defend Crops Against Fall Armyworm https://www.xa.com/en/news/app... [xa.com]

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