For the oil palm plantation industry, the population explosion of bagworms is a critical threat that can occur at any time. Despite their small size, these pests have massive destructive power. In a short time, bagworm attacks can strip palm fronds down to the midrib, which directly triggers a drastic decline in crop productivity.
Historically, chemical control of bagworms in plantations has been dominated by manual spraying techniques using power sprayers or knapsack sprayers, as well as trunk injection methods. However, these methods face significant technical challenges in the field, particularly on mature palms over 10 years old with tree heights exceeding 10 meters.
The towering characteristics of oil palm trees, reaching over 10 to 15 meters, make ground spraying methods highly ineffective. On the other hand, the trunk injection technique is also considered less efficient as it is time-consuming, labor-intensive, and causes mechanical damage to the trunk if done repeatedly.
Facing these various limitations, PT Golden Blossom Sumatra took an adaptive step by implementing drone spraying technology using the DJI Agras T70. Through the utilization of this GPS sensor-based aerial technology, the application of insecticides for bagworm control can be executed precisely, quickly, and evenly from the air. Besides successfully overcoming challenging land topography, this innovation also optimizes water use efficiency and improves occupational health and safety (OHS) standards by minimizing workers' direct contact with chemicals.
The integration of this modern technology is proven to bring significant efficiency to plantation operations. With a liquid tank capacity of 70 liters, one unit of the DJI Agras T70 can cover an area of 20 to 30 hectares per day, depending on field conditions. This achievement far exceeds the productivity of manual spraying methods and trunk injection techniques, which are limited to a coverage of around 1.5 to 2 hectares per day per worker.
Not only superior in terms of land coverage speed, but the pest mortality rate achieved through this drone technology is also proven to be highly superior. Based on the evaluation of pest control results in the field, insecticide application using the DJI Agras T70 achieves an average bagworm mortality rate of up to 90%, and can even reach 95% at the optimum dose. This actual achievement significantly surpasses the efficacy of manual spraying methods—where mortality is stuck at around 70% due to limited reach on high tree canopies—and the trunk injection technique, which only yields a mortality rate of 80% to 85%.
Through this digital transformation, PT Golden Blossom Sumatra has successfully proven that the integration of modern technology can increase operational efficiency while answering agronomic challenges in maintaining the stability of sustainable oil palm productivity.