A screenshot shows villagers carrying unmanned aerial vehicles. [Photo/CNTV]

Drone helps to beat the pests in E China

In our previous report, surveillance drones were used to fight Gaokao cheating. In Shenxian county, Shandong province, villagers discovered a novel way to stop crop-eating snails from attacking their fields - using unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones, to spray a lethal compound on them, CCTV reported on Sunday.

The villages loaded seven drones with a special compound that was toxic to the snails but that was otherwise safe.

According to the report, villagers in the county have been fighting a losing battle against the pests for almost a decade. The annual maize harvest was down by 40 per cent because of the snails.

Now with the high-tech solution, they have sprayed about 1.3 hectares of farmland and the results are encouraging.