Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) -- Drones will be used to map fields, monitor crop growth, diagnose diseases and control pests.

In October last year, at a video conference chaired by Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, it was announced that Uzbekistan would start using drones to control land and monitor crops.

On 2 February 2021, Jizzax Organic received permission to operate unmanned aerial vehicles from the Civil Aviation Agency of Uzbekistan. The Jizzakh cluster will be the first enterprise to use drones in agriculture. They will:

- to identify abnormalities in the growth and development of plants;

- to make spot fertilizers;

- monitor the uniformity of watering.

“Unmanned aerial vehicles will provide Jizzax Organic specialists with up-to-date and complete information about the quality of crops, damage or death of crops. Monitoring by agronomists takes a long time and does not allow covering every meter of land. If the damage to the seedlings occurred in the depths of the field, then there is a risk not to notice it in time. With unmanned aerial vehicles, we will identify and eliminate problems at the early stages: diagnose diseases, spray weeds, fight pests, complete sowing of non-emerged areas,” said Hikmatilla Karimov, director of Jizzax Organic.

The prototype arrived in Uzbekistan in November 2020. This is a Great Shark 330VTOL model of the Chinese company FOXTECH with attachments, the possibility of thirty-fold increase and night photography, a maximum take-off weight of 21 kg, a flight time of up to 2.5 hours and a speed of up to 80 km / h.

“We will use the received drone for mapping and tracking plant vegetation. Also this year, Jizzax Organic will purchase a heavy-duty fertilizer spraying drone. Based on the results of the tests, it will become clear how many drones we need to fully cover the sown areas. In 2021, fodder crops and grasses will occupy 10 thousand hectares,” said Hikmatilla Karimov.

The national Jizzakh cluster has already received a radio frequency for the drone and will start operating it with the start of sowing operations.