Psychological warfare in vineyard: Using drones and bird psychology to control bird damage to wine grapes

Abstract

Bird damage to commercial crops is a significant problem across the globe, especially for high value crops like wine grapes. Various bird control methods have been developed in the past to reduce bird damage. After a brief review of the current bird damage control strategies, we found the most effective methods, such as netting and hiring a human scarer, rely on intensive manual labour, as well as fragile and costly infrastructure. Whereas the cheaper methods, such as using alarm calls and predator models, are effective for no more than two weeks before the birds habituate to them. We are proposing a novel Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV, more commonly referred to as drone) system incorporating bird psychology for efficient bird damage control. The UAV is equipped with a loud speaker broadcasting distress calls, as well as a crow taxidermy installed on the undercarriage that appears as captured prey. This special UAV configuration is designed to engage birds’ well-established abilities to learn to recognise and avoid novel predators, thus providing the benefit that a long-term fear response towards the UAV can be expected. The initial trials were carried out in vineyards around south-eastern Australia. Results indicated the UAV can deter large pest birds such as ravens and cockatoos in a 50-m radius centred on the UAV for an extended period of time. The UAV can also effectively deter small pest birds such as silvereyes for brief time periods after exposure to the UAV. It is also evident from the results that while one UAV is sufficient to protect vineyards smaller than 25 ha, multiple UAVs are needed to protect a large vineyard effectively.