Gimhae City Launches Expansion of New Drone-Based Direct Rice Seeding Technology

Gyeongnam Gimhae Agricultural Technology Center is demonstrating direct seeding technology for rice using drones.
[Image source=Gimhae-si]

[Asia Economy Yeongnam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Lee Sang-hyun] On the 26th, the Gimhae Agricultural Technology Center in Gyeongnam announced that it has established a new technology for direct seeding of rice using agricultural drones and is working to spread it in the field.

Direct seeding is a new farming method in the era of the 4th Industrial Revolution that significantly reduces labor and production costs by sowing rice seeds directly into the paddy field to grow seedlings.

In typical rice farming, it takes about 2 people working for 1 hour on average to grow seedlings and transplant them, but drone direct seeding can be done in 10 minutes. Additionally, compared to mechanical transplanting, the working time is reduced to one-sixth, and production costs can be saved by up to 1.2 million KRW per hectare.

Last year, the center confirmed through a drone direct seeding pilot on 1 hectare (about 3,000 pyeong) of paddy field that the yield increased by 0.9% compared to conventional rice farming based on 10 ares (about 300 pyeong).

In particular, this year, due to low temperatures during the seedling raising period, there were many cases of unfilled grains and seedling blight, but since drone direct seeding does not require the seedling raising process, these problems can also be resolved.

A center official said, “If this year’s project is successful, we plan to expand the direct seeding area to more than 10 hectares in the Samjeong Rice Farming Group starting next year,” adding, “We will analyze the pilot results in detail in consultation with Gimhae City and plan to expand distribution.”

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