Drone pickup safeguards farmers' lychee incomes

Drones transported about 1.5 metric tons of lychees out of Taolian village in Guangzhou's Conghua district on Thursday morning after continuous heavy rainfall blocked the mountainous village's only road, local officials said.

The drones played an important role in safeguarding the income of local farmers, said Li Xihuan, Party secretary of Taolian.

While the village's lychees had already been picked, the rainfall cut off road access, causing distress among residents. Lychee is the most important economic crop for the village, Li said. There are about 25 tons of lychees waiting to be transported out of the village for sale.

"After receiving reports from villagers, we immediately organized Party members to go to the scene to assess the situation, and sought help from relevant departments and units," Li said.

Wang Lele, who is in charge of engineering construction at the Conghua power supply bureau, said his department sent personnel to investigate whether conditions were suitable for drone operations.

"We then verified the amount of lychees picked by the villagers and decided to coordinate five heavy-load drones to help transport the fruit out of the village for sale," Wang said.

The drones, with load-bearing capacities of 40 to 170 kilograms, were originally designed to transport power equipment. They could handle the weight of the lychee shipments and meet the farmers' urgent needs, Wang said.

In Guangdong province, a major lychee production base, drones, robots and AI technologies have been introduced to monitor and manage orchards, pick fruit and transport harvests.

While a drone flies above an orchard, air-ground monitoring data is transmitted in real time to a smart management system via 5G networks, said Deng Xiaoling, a professor with South China Agricultural University.

"The system employs AI for growth monitoring, pest and disease diagnosis and early warning, while providing farming operation recommendations," Deng said.

A harvesting robot developed by the university uses a six-degree-of-freedom robotic arm and a bionic compliant gripper, or "claw", to pick lychees.

Xiong Juntao, the robot's lead developer and also a professor at the university, said the machine can operate continuously and can also pick kiwi, guava and other fruits if the claw is changed.

Conghua has a lychee planting area of 195.87 square kilometers, representing 53 percent of Guangzhou's total. This year, Conghua's lychee output is expected to exceed 70,000 metric tons.

In Gaozhou city in western Guangdong, drones have gradually replaced traditional bamboo rafts for transporting lychees.

The city has more than 20 million square meters of lychee groves scattered across islands in Kuqu and Pingshan townships.

Previously, growers faced losses due to damage caused by jolting when fruit was ferried by bamboo raft.

Now, drones can deliver fresh lychees directly from the islands to distribution centers.

Cao Zhugang, secretary of the Communist Youth League of Gaozhou committee, said drone transportation costs about 0.3 yuan (4 cents) per kilogram, a 62.5 percent reduction.