Drones are becoming increasingly important in agriculture and in these modern days, more and more farmers are considering purchasing a drone. In fact, farmers are now turning to high-level drone technology that can provide them with fast and efficient solutions.
The agricultural industry is now embracing drone technology and using these advanced tools to transform the modern farming. The use of drone technology in agriculture is currently helping agricultural businesses meet the changing and growing demands of the future. Moreover, high-tech drones allow farmers, and the drone pilots that operate them, to increase efficiency in certain aspects of the farming process, from crop monitoring to planting, livestock management, crop spraying, irrigation mapping, and more.
According to a recent report by Markets and Markets, the agriculture drones market is expected to grow from US $1.2 billion by 2019 to US $4.8 billion by 2024 at a CAGR of 31.4%. The pressure on global food supply due to growing world population and increase in venture funding for the development of agriculture drones are a few of the key factors driving the growth of this market.
Importance of drones in agriculture
The use of drones for precision agriculture continues to evolve as the industry matures, and new technology is introduced that help to accomplish difficult and time consuming tasks and at the same time reducing cost on agricultural activities. The evolution of drone software and its overall affordability also account for the increased application of drones. Let’s now explore how drones can be used for agriculture, more specifically.
Crop yield
According to Justin Cunningham, Hitec Commercial Solutions, LLC Drone Sales Manager, the value of drones in the agricultural industry is increasing exponentially. In the past, most farmers needed to use a full-scale aircraft which is extremely expensive and not an efficient use of time or money.
“Now, drones are able to quickly deploy when needed, provide higher quality data at a fraction of the cost and allow the farmer or land owner to grow with technology while improving crop yield,” he adds.
Remote sensing
Drones are helpful especially when it comes to determining crop yield and crop health in the form of NDVI imagery, in Africa, drones are used to monitor deforestation and locust swarm movements, disaster management, This is according to Mirjam Bäumer, Microdrones Marketing Manager.
With reference to Nikita Prokofev, Head of agriculture at Geoscan Ltd., nowadays, there are two main applications for remote sensing drones: land management and multispectral mapping for variable rate fertilization.
i. Land management
Land management is based on the measurement of each field border position and area. This is vital information for resource planning, because amount of seeds, fertilizers, water and employee’s workload depends strictly on the arable land area. Also at this stage elevation maps can be built which is very useful for water management. Variable rate application (VRA) is more complicated and requires compatible machinery such as sprayers and spreaders. VRA is a part of precision agriculture which has proven its efficiency multiple times in various conditions and on different crops. The idea of this method is quite clear: fertilizers should be applied depending on the crop needs, and should not be applied at the zones where vegetation is non-viable or where there is no vegetation at all. So the task is to make the map of plant requirements, i.e. reveal vegetation zones.
ii. Multispectral mapping
Justin Cunningham , says that, utilization of multi-spectral sensors gives the farmer
the ability to target a specific area in their crop that may need particular attention, measure plant health, generate maps to provide prescribed health if needed and optimize efficiency of fields. The farmer can also use other sensors to quickly assess storm damage, identify any damage to the fencing or infrastructure, determine optimal foraging areas if
they farm livestock, monitor livestock movements and customize surveillance of their property.
“Drones are easy-to-use tools for multispectral mapping. Obtained imagery is processed up to reflectance maps and then either vegetation indices or a composite map is built. This data is used at classification stage as an information of crop health or nitrogen deficiency. Eventually, prescription maps are exported and loaded in the field computer or controller installed at the tractor, sprayer, etc,” says Nikita Prokofev.
Crop Surveillance
Matthieu Lefebvre, Wingtra Sales and Business Development Manager argues that, drones can gather more detailed and complete information far more quickly and more cost effectively than satellites, manned aircraft or conventional ground survey methods. Overseas demand for clean, agricultural products has never been higher and drones can maintain competitiveness despite high costs.
“Agricultural drones can provide farmers with immediate information about soils, plant health, growth rates, fertilizer requirements, weeds, pests and weather damage,” asserts Lefebvre.
Crop spraying
“The crop spraying drone technologies are advancing at a very rapid rate – making farming smarter and more efficient / cheaper,” says Tim Wise of PACSys (PTY) Ltd. “In some cases the drones are capable of more effective applications than the existing methods of application (knapsacks / tractors) thereby enhancing crop production and quality. This means more revenue for the growers and more food for the population,” he complements.
Field data collection
Matthew Davis, Drone Ops Manager at Aerobotics states that, drones are essential in agriculture as they can collect a lot more data points much faster than traditional farming practises. “Drones can cover large amounts of area and with our machine learning, we can provide farmers with actionable data within a couple days of the flight. The cameras that they carry also help offer valuable metrics that health, chlorophyll content, canopy area, tree counts, etc that help identify issues early on and help farmers track growth in their orchards,” he affirms.
What you should lookout for when buying a drone
Drones are accessible and relatively inexpensive, yet there are important things to take into account before implementing drone solutions. The steps involved in transforming your farm into a drone-enhanced agritech business include the following factors:
Flexibility
“The most important thing to consider is the flexibility needed with the aircraft. No
one wants to have an aircraft that can do only one job or has limited capabilities,” states Justin Cunningham. However, there are multiple factors to consider when purchasing an agricultural-based drone. One needs to consider how much land there is to cover, basic topography, the goal of the aircraft based on overall needs, what type of sensors are required and the overall flexibility of the aircraft on what
type of sensors it can carry, he adds.
Determining goals
Agriculture drones have a range of applications; ranging from field and crop monitoring, seed planting, cattle surveillance, etc. What do you want them to do?
Mirjam Bäumer advices on determine the core farm processes that you believe would benefit most from using drones, i.e., will the drone be used for spraying, spreading, NDVI imagery, topographical Surveys, Land Tenure. Conditions of flight matters too, i.e., weather conditions, topography etc.
Mr. Wise adds that among other factors one should look out for is what is the current pesticide application method cost per hectare and is the drone going to be cheaper / more effective? Is the pesticide you’re applying registered for aerial application at around 30 liters per hectare? If not, then the drone may not be as effective as other ground application methods (knapsacks, tractors) for higher volume applications.
“I think the most important thing to consider when buying a drone is to what extent you will use it. You can use smaller, cheaper drones for industries like film but in Agriculture we recommend bigger, more industrial drones. When flying for Aerobotics you will need a drone that can carry dual payloads (two cameras). The visual camera also needs to be of a certain quality (15 megapixels) and have geotagging capabilities. The bigger the drone, the more expensive it will be, but you will be able to cover more ground in a day and therefore get paid more,” says Matthew Davis.
Product discovery phase
Matthieu Lefebvre points out that, one need to look out on several factors before using a drone, for instance,
-Safety: Can the drone be operated safely for itself, the pilot and the environment?
– Ease of use and maintain: What are the skills to operate and maintain such advanced technology tool?
– Productivity and accuracy: How fast and accurate is the drone in collecting the agricultural data that are needed?
Automation
Nikita Prokofev comments that, automation is crucial when a drone is meant to be used in agriculture, because you’ll never know if it is possible to train operators in a proper way before they launch their first flight. Payload type should be defined by typical tasks for a drone.
“One of the most important factors is ease of use. For example, our drones are fully automated and even supplied without RC. Flight mission is planned at the operator’s laptop; manual control also is performed there, if required,” says Prokofev. “Payload type should be defined by typical tasks for a drone. Our specialization is remote sensing, and for this task you have two main options: quadcopter or fixed wing with digital still camera or multispectral camera. Basically, fixed wing fits better for larger areas of survey, with typical performance of 300-700 ha per hour. Quadcopter covers significantly lower area, approximately 50-100 ha per flight. Nevertheless, quadcopter is able to fly at lower altitude and speed, comparing to fixed wing. This is useful for ultra-high GSD, lower than 2 cm, thus quadcopters are widely used in research tasks,” he elaborates.
Caring for the Drone
Mr. Cunningham indicates that, depending on the amount of flight time on the aircraft, agricultural-based drone maintenance is fairly simple. You may need to replace motors, props or other basic parts. Battery refresh is also needed after a certain number of flight hours. The occasional software update may be needed, which is simple to do in the field.
Overall, if the aircraft is kept clean and protected, it will last for a very long time.
On the other hand, Ms Bäumer is keen on customer support 24/7, Inspection Program every 12 months or 150hr of flight to inspect for damaged and corroded parts, Service Program every 300hr and 900hr to replace motors, payload cables, power plugs, electronic components and arm joints.
Mr. Prokofev recommends that, remote sensing drones, especially electric types, do not require complicated maintenance procedures. Most often, battery health decreases, limiting battery life cycle to approximately two years. Some moving parts such as motors should be checked every 80 flights.
According to Mr. Wise, The high resolution cameras that the drones carry help offer valuable metrics such as health, chlorophyll content, canopy area, volume and tree counts which assist farmers with identifying issues at an early stage to ultimately help prevent loss and increase yields.
