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Editorial Book
OPEN ACCESS | Published on : 04-Jul-2026 | Pages: 112-125 | Doi : 10.37446/edibook252025/112-125
The increasing need for sustainable crop protection, along with labour shortages, rising production costs, and concerns about pesticide misuse, has sparked interest in drone technologies for agriculture. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or drones now a days have gained attention for its ability to improve pest monitoring, plant observation, and pesticide application. Especially in India, where fragmented landholdings, recurrent pest outbreaks, changing climates, and dependence on labour-intensive practices most of the times limit the effectiveness of conventional spraying methods. Changing role of drones in managing insect pests, focusing on Indian agriculture is highlighted in this chapter. It examines how the developments in remote sensing, thermal and multispectral imaging, artificial intelligence, geographic information systems (GIS) and autonomous flying technologies are transforming drones from basic aerial sprayers to important decision-support tools. It highlights UAV-based pest detection, precise insecticide application, spray deposition dynamics, and how drones fit into Integrated Pest Management (IPM) programs. Drones offer many benefits, including improved accuracy, timely application, and reduction in risk for the operators while being more efficient with resources. However various challenges such as technological barriers, regulatory issues, high costs and ecological safety may continue to affect the comprehensive use of drones.
Precision agriculture, Drones, GIS, Crop protection, IPM, Artificial intelligence
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