One recent morning in Vidalia, Georgia, US, third-generation farmer Greg Morgan launched an AG-230 drone with 30 liters of fungicide onto a field of sweet onions. The chemical, which is essential for crop survival in this moist condition, would be hauled and dripped from a 1,900-litre tank, usually on the back of Morgan’s 4.5-tonne tractor. Now it was falling in a fine mist 10 feet above his cash crop from the spray jet of a 36 kg drone.
Vidalia onions are a $150 million local industry that is vulnerable to climate change. Morgan joins the vanguard of farmers who are moving from tractors to drones as they adapt to the rising cost of chemicals and contend with hot temperatures, heavy rains, heavy weeds and prolific pests. Farmers have been using drones for 20 years primarily to scan fields with cameras to see where crops are thriving and failing. Now drones are hands-on crop management: for precise spraying of herbicides, insecticides and fertilizers, and for delivering seeds during the planting season.
Hylio CEO Arthur Ericsson describes the “featherweight flying tractor” as the firm’s agri-drone. Morgan is making a big difference to the food business. Drones are set to disrupt the tractor industry, and unlike many other high-tech agriculture trends, this one is actually good for small and medium-sized farmers and a win-win for the planet. Boot. In the eight months since Morgan invested $40,000 (much cheaper than the roughly $700,000 it would cost to replace its old land rig), it has cut its fuel costs and reduced its agrochemical use by 15%. Have given. Drones have also enabled him to work his fields after heavy rains, when the ground is often too wet for heavy equipment, and have saved his crops from regular damage caused by tractors. It has also protected its soil from compaction, swamping and erosion caused by agricultural machinery. ,
I first saw an agro-drone at work last summer on a farm in Iowa. Fifth-generation farmer Brian Pickering and his daughter launch the MG-1P Rantizo drone made by China’s DJI, which spans 9 feet with 8 whizzing propellers. His drone sprayed organic pesticide at a rate of about 7.5 liters per acre and 14 acres per hour. It sprayed mustard seeds in soy fields at the rate of 11.3 kg per acre.
These aerial acrobats use less than one-tenth the energy of ground tractors and do not harvest crops, hoe or even touch the soil. Drones look like the future. Morgan’s onion field offered strong evidence. While Pickering runs a large commodity farm with a sizable R&D budget, Morgan struggles to remain profitable on his 300 acres. For him buying a drone was not a new toy, but a survival tool to help defray expenses. As Hylio’s Erickson sees it, drones are “like little X-wing fighters. They give small farmers the tools to be as efficient as some of the most advanced tractor technology at a fraction of the cost.”
As the hardware of agro-drone becomes more sophisticated, so does the software, which is being developed by startups like Canada’s Precision AI. This would enable the drone to use computers to work out exactly where and how much chemical is needed from plant to plant, rather than blanketing the entire area with a single treatment.
Drones won’t be completely replacing tractors anytime soon. Their payload is limited to around 75 litres, not nearly enough to handle the amount needed between harvests. But they are still capable of displacing the costly, useless crop-dusting of herbicides and fungicides carried by airplanes and helicopters over millions of acres.
While crop-dusting spreads chemicals that run off the edges of fields, drones deliver chemicals in a fine mist directly to the crop without overspill. Agile flyers can maneuver around obstacles such as power lines and trees, greatly increasing the efficiency of chemical applications.
While the benefits of agro-drone are significant, two of the world’s largest tractor producers, Deere & Company in the US and Mahindra & Mahindra in India, have only half-heartedly begun investing in drones, which John Deere’s $52 There is a small part. Arab Empire. Veterans of mechanized agriculture may have been slow to recognize it, but the era of flying tractors has arrived.
At his Georgia farm, Morgan says that, for now, he’s keeping a low profile with his drone as he learns how to operate the new tool. “I prefer to hide it,” he said. Farmers are widely regarded as skeptical and conservative, and for good reason—they’ve seen a lot of high-tech gadgets come and go that weren’t worth their salt.
“But I’m very happy with it,” Morgan said. “The fact of the matter is that it works.”
Amanda Little is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering agriculture and climate,
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