During the cotton boll period, when cotton farmers are busy, there are almost no people in the cotton fields of Manas County, Changji Hui Autonomous Prefecture, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.
I saw the plant protection drone shuttle back and forth, carrying out mechanical cotton harvesting and plant protection operations. We use the Beidou navigation system for autonomous operations, which is precise, convenient, and efficient. A drone can complete 500 acres of land per day. “Song Guolin, a large plantation in Shangzhuangzi Village, Letuyi Town, Manas County, has planted over 2500 acres of cotton, but only needs to go to the field every few days to see its growth. The agricultural machinery professional cooperative in the village has 25 high-power tractors equipped with satellite navigation unmanned driving systems, as well as new equipment such as precision seeders and intelligent pesticide sprayers. From planting to harvesting, everything is mechanized, so I don’t have to worry too much, “said Song Guolin.
After the neighboring village villager Zhang Liang transferred the land, he came to Shangzhuangzi Village to work as a pump house administrator. Just in time for watering, he opened the “Huifeng Harvest” app on his phone and activated the electric valve within 3 seconds. Water and fertilizer quickly flowed into the cotton roots along the drip irrigation belt. According to the water demand, the valve opening can also be intelligently adjusted.
Song Guolin is an old hand in farming, and used to worry most about watering. “The earliest time was to carry a shovel and dig ditches to lead water to the ground. Later, drip irrigation was available, but the valves needed manual operation. The solid fertilizers had to be carried to the ground and poured into the water fertilizer tank for mixing and preparation, which required a lot of manpower. When busy, they had to do their own work.” Song Guolin said that now liquid fertilizer was used, and the manufacturer directly poured it into the water fertilizer tank, and the ground was also equipped with automatic valves, A pump room administrator can manage 1000-3000 acres of land.
Through precise water and fertilizer management, the water consumption of cotton from planting to harvesting has been compressed to 360 cubic meters per acre. “Zhu Junling, Deputy Leader of the Digital Agriculture Technical Guidance Group of Manas County Agriculture and Rural Bureau, introduced that in the past, manually turning the valve was difficult to control, which could easily lead to water resource waste; Now the mobile phone can display instantaneous traffic, and as long as it exceeds the normal range, it will automatically prompt for water leakage.
In Manas County, each township has a set of equipment to monitor soil moisture, insect infestation, and crop growth. These data will be transmitted to the digital agriculture big data platform located in Chaichang Village, Baojiadian Town. Nearly a hundred agricultural technicians from the County Agricultural Technology Promotion Center and liquid fertilizer manufacturers will provide timely guidance to farmers’ field management based on the monitoring data.
In order to further cultivate more new farmers who can adapt to the development of digital agriculture, Manas County has also built a digital agriculture training base, providing training on scientific management knowledge of water and fertilizer and remote control of water and fertilizer application skills. Since the beginning of this year, there have been 8 large-scale training sessions on the promotion and application of digital agriculture technology, enabling 18000 farmers to become “technology savvy people” in digital agriculture practical technology, and 379 people to obtain new vocational farmer qualification certificates.
At present, Manas County has applied digital agriculture technology to 300000 acres of arable land, and plans to build all 1 million acres of arable land in the county into a digital farmland demonstration base within 3 years. Faced with the increasing demand for digital agricultural equipment, Manas County has started construction of the first digital agricultural equipment industrial park in Xinjiang this year, and 11 factories will be completed by the end of August.
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