China's Shandong uses smart tech to secure wheat harvest

Agricultural technicians in east China's Shandong Province started employing small equipment such as drones and unmanned vehicles to grow their fields in the current key stage for wheat growing.

Zhang Tong, a large-scale grain producer in Shandong's Jinan, uses a drone equipped with a multispectral image sensor for real-time data collection of winter wheat growth conditions. This cutting-edge method facilitates extensive field inspection, achieving a daily coverage of over 5,000 mu (about 333 hectares) of fields.

Meanwhile, technicians remotely control an unmanned vehicle equipped with a multispectral camera for high-precision monitoring in fields with weaker seedling conditions.

These large-scale grain producers expect to use these intelligent agricultural technologies to improve field inspection efficiency and secure a strong harvest.

"Previously, manually inspecting wheat fields could cover only 500 to 600 mu in a day, demonstrating low efficiency and an inability to detect problems promptly. A multispectral drone can survey about 1,500 mu of land in one hour through the integrated air-ground approach. This is supported by precise feedback and analysis from an unmanned field monitoring vehicle. With this system, areas with problems can be promptly identified, enabling precise management to prevent crop yield reduction due to delayed interventions," Zhang said.

"Large-scale grain growers first employ a multispectral drone for extensive field inspection, marking key areas and identifying problems. Subsequently, a multispectral unmanned vehicle is dispatched from the base to the site with problems, equipped with a multispectral camera to gather information and images. These images are then transmitted back to our backend system for intelligent analysis and assessment, culminating in a tailored solution that is relayed to the large-scale grain growers. Based on this feedback, the growers carry out targeted actions such as fertilization, pesticide application, and irrigation," said Zheng Jie, an agricultural technician.

Since the jointing-booting stage is critical for yield formation and field management in the current spring wheat growing period, local agricultural technicians are conducting on-site technical guidance for farmers to lay the foundation for summer grain harvests.

Li Hongzhong, vice chairman of the National People's Congress Standing Committee, met with the European Parliament's delegation for relations with China led by chair Engin Eroglu in Beijing on Wednesday.

Li, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, said that China is willing to work with the European Union (EU) to strengthen communication, enhance mutual trust, deepen cooperation, and pursue mutual benefit and win-win outcomes.

He said China stands ready to join hands with the EU to address global challenges, promote exchanges and cooperation among legislative bodies, effectively utilize communication mechanisms, and advance the sound and stable development of China-EU relations.

Eroglu said the EU stands ready to work with China to contribute to the development of EU-China relations.