Inspirational ideas: Dealing with pests from the air

French SME Skeyelabs is currently developing a multifunctional aerial drone for use in agriculture and wine production. They are carrying out tests with farming cooperatives for a particularly innovative and environmentally friendly function for their drone: protecting corn plants from a difficult pest.

Farmers often use the Trichogramma, a parasitic wasp, as a biological control agent against the European corn worm (Ostrinia nubilalis). The wasp does not harm to the corn, but it seeks out the worm’s eggs, laying its own eggs inside it and killing off the host. Finding the best way to spread the Trichogramma can sometimes be a challenge.

Skeyelabs, an SME from Montauban, France, has patented a technology which spreads mini capsules, each one containing thousands of Trichogramma larvae. The drone is able to spread the capsules with great precision. The Trichogramma do not travel more than 6 or 7 metres when they have hatched and so to reach all areas of the crop, it is essential that the larvae are evenly and carefully distributed. This process can also be used for small and medium farms where spreading by helicopter or manually not practical or too costly. The process is very quick, so it saves time and reduces waste because the larvae are carefully spread geographically in restricted quantities.

The SME is currently testing a prototype in collaboration with a number of farmers' cooperatives in their area. The idea is to develop a multifunctional drone capable of collecting data for precision farming and spreading this type of biological control capsule.

www.skeyelabs.fr