The Agronomists, Ep 127: Droning on seed and fertilizer with Reuben Stone and Felix Weber
by RealAgriculture Agronomy Team
UAVs, or drones, have evolved past aerial imagery and are quickly becoming a useful tool in the early fly-on of seed into standing crops.
This is pretty new territory for many, so to unpack what to consider and how successful a drone can be as a seeder, host Lyndsey Smith is joined by Reuben Stone of Valley Bio and Felix Weber of Ag Business & Crop Inc. on this week’s episode of The Agronomists.
This episode of The Agronomists is brought to you by ADAMA Canada, Corteva Enlist E3, and the Machinery Update!
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SUMMARY
How early can we fly seed on into a standing crop? Perhaps as early as two to four weeks pre-harvest
You have a drone? You also have to service it. There are companies out there that specialize in this, too.
The space for drones in agriculture is continuously evolving
Deciding the ROI of drones can be tricky
There’s many different types of drones for different uses — an application drone is MUCH larger than an imaging drone
There’s competition in the marketplace now for drones, and not just a drone with a small tank, but ones that are actually made and targeted at agriculture
Application drones for North America are pretty new
Make sure you are laying out your boundary maps on the drone as well
There’s a couple of legal differences between a regular imaging drone and an application drone Know the rules — through Transport Canada, and through the PMRA
Currently where things are at, operating a drone on a daily basis for your applications is hard
There are things moving, but currently regulatory policy is…difficult. There’s time you can fly, times you can’t,
The height of drone to drop differs on the type of drone
Application drones are getting bigger and bigger, to the point they’ve almost become helicopters. Is there a point where increased size doesn’t make sense?
Is there an issue with blends “settling” out while flying to the application place from the fill point?
Drop height changes with seed height/weight
Reuben put seed on at three timings this year: four weeks prior to harvest, two weeks prior to harvest, right in front of the combine (so seed got covered with chaff)
Results have been really promising — including thinking about double cropping a short-season oat, buckwheat, or forage
The longer the drone flies under load the faster the battery dies — lower seeding rates can actually be harder on battery life
As far as the drone knows, there’s no difference between day and night. You just have to pay attention to inversion, and the same things you would worry about with environmental stresses as a regular drone
The drone really isn’t for everyone, or for every operation. But things are definitely moving.
Green on green spraying — there’s some advancements here, too
CNH Industrial hosted a tech day launch at Phoenix, Arizona, in early December and rolled out its first electric tractor prototype with autonomous features, the New Holland T4 Electric Power Hailed as the industry’s first all-electric light utility tractor prototype with autonomous features, the T4 was developed between the CNH team in the U.S. and Italy-based Modena, and in conjunction…
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