Day 2: Narayangaon, Otur – Spray Demonstration in a Cabbage Farm
Our Drone Yatra journey continues as we move from Manchar to Narayangaon. We reached our first demonstration location early in the morning and were pleasantly surprised to see a lot of our grower friends were already assembled at the location, eagerly waiting for us.
We quickly set up our demonstration equipment which included the drone, loading it up with water to spray on the farm and getting it set-up with geo-tagging to spray the farm. This was our second demonstration and it was going to happen on a cabbage farm. This presented a great opportunity as it displayed the drone’s spraying prowess on a Cabbage crop.
It was definitely a successful demonstration and a superb interaction with the growers as well who were full of questions about the drone. One of the most interesting questions that came up during the interaction was the comparison of cost for manual spraying labor and the drone spray’s cost.
Although the discussions were very spirited, we had to move on from the location, so after bidding all the growers an adieu and thanking them for sparing their time for the demonstration, we moved on to the next location for our demonstration Otur.
Otur witnessed a lot of growers bee-lined for the drone demonstration. They were very excited were actively involved in the drone’s setting up, trying to catch a closer glimpse at all time. Due to safety precautions, we had to move them away from the drone from time to time, and finally it was time to fly. The drone worked perfectly, spraying water on the entire farm in a matter of minutes.
It was interesting to watch the expressions of the farmers who could not believe how soon the spraying was done. They were all praises for the technology and are very eager for it to reach them so that they can start availing it. For the growers, the drone spraying technology helps them finish their spraying task early and frees a lot of their precious time which they can invest in other activities that can help boost their overall income.
A very interesting day came to an end here as we moved towards our next destination, Sangamner.