Efficacy of Drone-Applied Fungicide Treatments in Control of Sunflower Diseases

In light of alarming climate change and the worsening water crisis, the use of ultra-low volume applications is essential for modern agricultural practices. Given that sunflower cultivation is widespread in Romania, our study focused on analyzing the effectiveness of chemical treatments for controlling pathogens in this crop using drone-spraying technology. We applied chemical treatments with the DJI Agras T50 drone to compare the efficiency of fungicides applied at reduced volumes to those applied at normal volumes, simulating traditional ground application methods. Our findings showed that applying fungicides at ultra-low volumes increased their effectiveness by 23–35% compared to normal volumes. With a spray rate of 10 L per hectare, we achieved fungicide efficiencies exceeding 90%, depending on the specific pathogen. This experiment demonstrates that applying fungicides at low (LV) and ultra-low volumes (ULV) can significantly enhance their effectiveness. Drones are uniquely capable of uniformly distributing these small quantities of solutions over extensive areas.