Recently, at the passion fruit base of the Hazha villager group in Qimaba Township, Luchun County, four heavy-payload cargo drones lifted off one after another, each carrying bags of organic fertiliser suspended beneath their fuselages, flying along preset routes across gullies and ridges and shuttling back and forth over mountainous terrain at altitudes of 300 to 500 metres.

Two hundred tonnes of organic fertiliser were delivered in batches to various maintenance points, transforming what used to be a "fertiliser-carrying trek up the mountain" on human backs and pack animals into a low-altitude "aerial corridor" of round trips.

The Hazha base sits halfway up a mountain, where the trails are steep and full of sharp turns. A single person can carry only one bag at a time, with each round trip taking about 30 minutes. Transporting fertiliser manually was both time-consuming and exhausting, and the sustained heavy loads on steep slopes posed safety hazards.

This year the base introduced professional drones for agricultural input airlifting. After workers secure the fertiliser bags and set the waypoints, the drones fly autonomously and release their payloads at designated points, avoiding complex terrain and tree cover.

According to on-site operational estimates, a single drone completes one leg in about one minute and 30 seconds, carrying two bags per trip, and can finish in a short time the amount of transport work that previously took several people half a day.

"Efficiency is up, costs are down, and the most immediate feeling for local residents is that they no longer have to bear the burden on their backs," said Li Jun, manager of Luchun County Xianglian Yunong Development Co., Ltd.

In the past, transporting fertiliser relied on manpower, which was time-consuming and laborious. After the drones were brought in, with their high trip frequency and precise delivery points, the labour force has been freed from carrying loads up steep slopes, and delays in maintenance caused by poor transportation access have also been reduced.

From "carrying on backs and pack animals" to "aerial delivery," the change is not only about speed. For growers, timely fertiliser delivery means maintenance work is not missed at critical junctures, and passion fruit plots can be top-dressed and tended on schedule. For rural areas, the terrain has been turned into a low-altitude application scenario, and technological equipment has become a truly practical "new farming tool."

A person in charge from Qimaba Township explained that drone fertiliser delivery has resolved the most troublesome transportation bottleneck in expanding cultivation. With less physical effort and lower costs, the public feels more confident about growing passion fruit well and on a larger scale.

One flight in the air, one bag in place. The mountain remains the same, but with the change in how fertiliser is transported, the burden on local residents has lightened and maintenance efficiency has improved. As technology reaches down to the plots, "new quality productive forces" have been written into a visible account of increased income for the people.

Correspondent: Yang Yulin. Layout: Bai Yubao. Editors: Li Meng, Yin Yang. Duty Editorial Board Member: Li Meng. Editor-in-Chief: Qiu Zisong. Please indicate the source when reprinting: Source: Luchun County Converged Media Centre. Submission email: lcxdstxwbjb@163.com.