Comparison between unmanned aerial vehicle and tractor lance sprayer against Dubas bug Ommatissus lybicus (Hemiptera: Tropiduchidae)

Date cicala pest with, feeding of leaf or fruit juice, reduces the fruit's quality and marketability. The conventional method of spraying dates palm trees to control this pest is using of tractor lance sprayers. In this method, high pressure is increased drift, solution consumption and environment contaminates. Utilizing the new drone technology in spraying against date palm cicala can be a way to reduce the disadvantages mentioned. In this research, three different treatments were used to control the date cicala during a block completely randomized design with four replications in Farashband area (Fars province).Results showed the tractor lance sprayer and sprayer drone, the highest and lowest consumption of poisonous solution was 437.7 and 14.46 liter/ha respectively, the drift was 42.6 and 11.02%, the field capacity was 5.55 and 0.8 ha per hour respectively. There wasn't any significant difference between sprayer drone and tractor lance sprayer treatment in 3 days after spraying in terms of effectiveness, but this difference was significant in 7 days after spraying and the sprayer drone method was preferable. The spray quality coefficient in the drone sprayer was 1.35. The energy consumption of the tractor lance sprayer was 44.4 times higher than that of the sprayer drone. In terms of economically, the cost benefit ratio was 2.96 and 4.2 in sprayer drone and tractor lance sprayer respectively, that the tractor lance sprayer was superior than the drone sprayer, however, these methods were able to return capital over a period of one month.