About this Research Topic

Background

Plant chemical protection uses professional spraying machines to transport chemicals such as pesticides and herbicides to the target sites for pest, disease, and weed control in crop production. Such practices play a vital role in ensuring the supply of food, fruits, and vegetables for human beings. However, traditional plant chemical application methods suffer from excessive pesticide use, low utilization rate, and high labor intensity due to the backwardness of the existing sprayers, the single atomization technology, etc. In order to boost the progress of modern agriculture, plant chemical protection should be oriented toward efficient, accurate, and intelligent application technologies and equipment. Smart chemical application technology and efficient equipment can effectively reduce pesticide usage, mitigate the harm of chemicals to the environment, and lower labor intensity, realizing the sustainable development of disease and pest control of horticultural crops, ensuring food safety, and maintaining crop yield and quality.

This article collection aims to hold in-depth research on new technologies for the chemical application of horticultural crops, such as computational fluid dynamics (CFD), target detection, dynamic fluid mechanics, application planning, and precise spray control. The focused study will help to explore new theories, develop advanced technologies, and optimize the chemical application of pest, disease, and weed control in horticultural crops.

We welcome submissions of all article types accepted by Frontiers in Plant Science, describing interdisciplinary approaches that integrate novel technologies and new control methods into the practical pest management of horticultural crops. The research topic covers the following subthemes and other relevant studies:
• Pesticide application methods
• Sampling and monitoring schemes for diseases, pests, and weeds
• Design of efficient chemical application machine
• Precise chemical application and variable chemical application
• Target detection and profile spraying
• New method for studying chemical and adjuvant characteristics, droplet formation, and droplet moving dynamics outside/inside crop canopy
• Chemical application with UAV
• Method of spraying drift control

Keywords: disease and pest control, simulation analysis, ultra-low volume spraying, precise spraying, spraying drift control, chemical application, horticultural crops, smart agriculture

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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