The application of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) in remote sensing monitoring and plant protection product (PPP) spraying has seen rapid development in recent years. Pesticide spraying using unmanned aerial spraying systems (UASS) is now prevalent worldwide, particularly in East Asia due to the inadequacy of previous spraying equipment and complex terrain conditions. As a consequence, UASS has experienced explosive growth in this region.

This growth significantly improves agricultural spraying efficiency and safeguarding pesticide applicators. However, precise and intelligent spraying effects remain yet to be fully achieved. To bridge this gap, remote sensing UAVs equipped with RGB, spectrum, and radar sensors could furnish the key. They can capture high-resolution field images, transcending the shortcomings of ground equipment that lacks macroscopic information. They can also convert information such as crop canopy characteristics and spatial distribution of pests and diseases in farmland into spraying prescription maps. In general, precise spraying by UASS based on the prescription maps can effectively reduce the application amount of PPPs and improve environmental and economic benefits.

This Research Topic focuses on UASS pesticide application technology and remote sensing UAVs to identify crop canopy and pest and disease characteristics to assist spraying decisions. Due to the drift caused by aerial spraying, UASS spraying of herbicides is still in the cautious application stage. In addition, due to the limited load and the interception of spray droplets by crop canopy, resulting in insufficient penetration of droplets, the application of UASS for high-density crops is still relatively rudimentary. More field trial studies are still needed. Moreover, how can we accurately evaluate the phenotypic characteristics of crop canopy and identify diseases, pests, and weeds based on remote sensing UAVs? How do we convert the difference in the spatial distribution of the above characteristics into a spray prescription map? We welcome the latest research surrounding the above areas but not limited to the above issues.

All manuscript types, such as original research papers and reviews, are welcome. Potential topics may include, but are not limited to, the following:
• Remote sensing imagery to identify farmland diseases, insect pests, and weeds.
• Evaluation of crop canopy phenotypic characteristics.
• Spray prescription map and cell meshing.
• Remote sensing to evaluate pesticide application effects.
• Optimized design of unmanned aerial spray systems.
• Spray quality, drift, and environmental risks.
• Interaction between UASS wind field with crop canopy.
• UASS spraying application in different terrains such as mountainous regions or orchards.

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Frontiers in Plant Science

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