In mid-April, rice transplanters dressed the fields in green as a trial of wide-narrow row planting took place in Wucheng district, Jinhua, Zhejiang province. This year, the trial welcomed a new assistant — drones.
"We've upgraded our innovative technology by modifying the key external structure of traditional transplanters, introducing new combinations like '17 cm and 33 cm' and '20 cm and 40 cm' spacing, alongside conventional methods," explained Professor Yu Gaohong from Zhejiang Sci-Tech University.
Despite a proliferation of comparison groups this year, the process is now more efficient thanks to the use of drones.
Zheng Yongfu, head of Jinhua "Low-altitude plus AI" Agricultural Service Center, said, "Drones capture images, and our AI model analyzes them within 30 minutes to identify areas with missing or weak seedlings, providing health reports for timely intervention."
A single drone, operated by skilled pilots, can photograph nearly 8,000 high-definition images over 3,000 mu (200 hectares) in just three hours. These images are sent back to the service center for AI analysis to quickly pinpoint problem areas.
"The real success is when farmers embrace it," Zheng added. "This spring, we've serviced over 10,000 mu."
Since 2025, Zhejiang has promoted mechanized rice transplanting, boosting the machine transplant rate by nearly 40 percent in just one year.
