Vol. 10, Special Issue 1, Part D (2026)

In India, agricultural drones are increasingly being adopted as precision farming tools that enhance efficiency and sustainability by enabling uniform, site-specific application of nano-fertilizers, reducing input wastage, labor dependency, and production costs, while improving crop health and productivity. Agricultural drones, a class of small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), are effective tools in crop cultivation for fertilizer and pesticide application, crop monitoring, and real-time data acquisition. Their high operational speed ensures rapid and uniform field coverage, with minimal human exposure to agrochemicals. Nano-fertilizers, owing to their nano-scale particle size and high surface area, improve nutrient absorption, photosynthetic efficiency, and metabolic activity in plants. In the present case study, drone-assisted application of nano-fertilizers significantly outperformed conventional farmer practices, with the combined use of recommended basal fertilizers and foliar nano urea (T₂) resulting in higher plant height, leaf area, stem girth, and fresh and dry biomass, indicating improved nutrient uptake and growth efficiency in crops, while the integration of nano DAP with nano urea (T₃) further enhanced phosphorus use efficiency and vegetative development. Although the cob number remained unchanged during the observation period, increased biomass under nano-fertilizer treatments suggests higher yield potential at later growth stages. Drone-based spraying enabled precise and timely nutrient delivery, reducing fertilizer use by approximately 20-40%, achieving significant savings in labour and operational costs, and lowering chemical exposure risks. The technology also improved application efficiency by covering about one ha in 20 minutes using nearly 25 Liters per hectare of water, thereby reducing water consumption, input losses, and cost per acre.Overall, drone-based nano-fertilizer application proved to be a cost-effective, resource-efficient, and environmentally sustainable approach for precision crop production, particularly benefiting small and marginal farmers.