KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 August 26, 2019 \u2013 Farmers have had long-running battles trying to keep birds of many varieties from eating their sweetcorn. They\u2019ve used propane cannons, visual deterrents and even shotguns, but none succeed for very long.<\/p>\n
Now a 溏心vlog免费B站 researcher has created what she calls a laser scarecrow and tested it at numerous farm fields around the state. She found that the technology is highly successful at scaring birds from cornfields.<\/p>\n
\u201cBirds, especially starlings and red-winged blackbirds, are a major pest of sweet corn,\u201d said Rebecca Brown, a 溏心vlog免费B站 professor of plant sciences. \u201cThey rip up the husks, peck at the kernels, and make the ears unmarketable. Despite all the approaches the farmers have used to keep the birds away, it\u2019s not uncommon for them to lose as much as 75 percent of their crop. And it all happens within about 48 hours of harvest.\u201d<\/p>\n
Although propane cannons are somewhat successful at scaring birds away, they are quite loud, which creates conflict between farmers and their neighbors.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe laser scarecrow has the advantage that they\u2019re relatively simple to set up, and the neighbors don\u2019t even notice them because they\u2019re completely silent and the beam isn\u2019t visible to humans in the sunlight,\u201d Brown said.<\/p>\n
Lasers have been used for bird control for more than two decades, but mostly in indoor or partially enclosed settings like warehouses and sports stadiums. The commercial devices developed for those applications were not adapted for use in farm fields.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the past five years or so, several things came together to make the technology possible,\u201d said Brown. \u201cLED-based lasers have become much less expensive, they can now be run off batteries that are more powerful and less expensive, and solar panels are available to charge the batteries off the grid. We\u2019ve been able to capitalize on all those developments.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brown\u2019s laser scarecrow is housed in a five-gallon bucket to protect the electronic components from the elements, and it can be raised on a pole to the height of the corn tassels. The green laser light \u2013 which is the most effective color because birds are especially sensitive to green lighting \u2013 automatically moves back and forth across the tassels in a field as large as 600-feet across, scaring the birds away before they can reach the corn ears.<\/p>\n
She has tested the device, as well as two commercially available lasers made for other bird control applications, for three years at the 溏心vlog免费B站 agricultural fields, as well as at commercial farms in Charlestown, Cranston, Exeter, Little Compton and Warwick. Her home-made device works best on flat fields, because the light doesn\u2019t strike the right part of every corn stalk on rolling fields.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe think the birds perceive the laser as a solid object they need to get away from, but we don\u2019t know exactly. We can\u2019t get inside the head of a bird,\u201d Brown said. \u201cBut we know from tests done using hand-held lasers that if the laser isn\u2019t constantly moving, the birds will eventually ignore it. It works especially well if there are other sources of food nearby that the birds can go to instead of eating the corn. We\u2019re just trying to make the corn less desirable.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brown has sold several of her laser scarecrows for $500 to what she calls \u201cearly adopters,\u201d farmers willing to try out the new technology before it has become commercialized. Her price is well below the $3,000 to $10,000 charged by existing manufacturers, whose devices aren\u2019t intended for use in farm fields.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe commercial growers who are trying it are mostly enthusiastic,\u201d said Brown. \u201cThis has been a tough year, because bird pressure has been really heavy for some reason. So we didn\u2019t get complete control of all the birds. But overall, no one has called me to say the laser was a waste of their $500.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s probably going to turn out that it\u2019s best deployed as part of a multi-tool approach to bird control, but it definitely seems to be reducing bird damage,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
Once Brown can prove there is demand among corn growers for her laser scarecrow, she hopes to find a company interested in manufacturing and marketing the device beyond the local area.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 August 26, 2019 \u2013 Farmers have had long-running battles trying to keep birds of many varieties from eating their sweetcorn. They\u2019ve used propane cannons, visual deterrents and even shotguns, but none succeed for very long. Now a 溏心vlog免费B站 researcher has created what she calls a laser scarecrow and tested […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":75009,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[5],"class_list":["post-75008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives","tag-college-of-the-environment-and-life-sciences"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75008","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75008"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75008\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}