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Agricultural Drones and Services

[vc_row][vc_column el_id=”a1″][ultimate_heading main_heading=”A Brief Introduction of Agricultural Drones, Uses and their Advantages for Crop and Human Health, Economy and Environment”][/ultimate_heading][vc_empty_space][dt_fancy_image image_id=”245″][vc_empty_space][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]

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[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column el_id=”a1″][ultimate_heading main_heading=”What’s Agricultural Drones?”][/ultimate_heading][vc_empty_space][vc_column_text]Drone technology is a phenomenal innovation that continues to have far-reaching effects across today’s society, transforming our lives and the way we do business.

But when it comes to the agriculture world, 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, etc., in a very economical well that all farmers can use the related services at low cost.

The agricultural industry seems to have embraced drone technology with open arms, using these advanced tools to transform modern farming.[/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column el_id=”a2″][ultimate_heading main_heading=”Why Using Drones in Agriculture?”][/ultimate_heading][vc_empty_space][vc_column_text]Drones are equipped with technology like propulsion systems, infrared cameras, GPS and navigation systems, programmable controllers, and automated flight planning. Plus, with custom-made data processing software any collected information can instantly be put to use towards better management decisions.

Drones are transforming how agriculture and farming are done. By implementing drone technology, farms and agriculture businesses can improve crop yields, save time, and make land management decisions that’ll improve long-term success. Farmer’s today have a variety of complex factors that influence the success of their farms. From water access to changing climate, wind, soil quality, the presence of weeds and insects, variable growing seasons, and more.

As a result, farmers are turning to high-level drone technology to help remedy these problems, and provide fast and efficient solutions.

There are multiple uses for agricultural drones, including:

[/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column el_id=”a3″][ultimate_heading main_heading=”Monitoring”][/ultimate_heading][vc_empty_space][vc_column_text]Agricultural drones allow farmers to obtain access to a wealth of data they can use to make better management decisions, improve crop yields, and increase overall profitability.

Drones can be used to collect data related to crop yields, livestock health, soil quality, nutrient measurements, weather and rainfall results, and more. This data can then be used to get a more accurate map of any existing issues, as well as create solutions based upon extremely reliable data.Anyhow, This information can help farmers determine the most effective patterns for planting, managing crops, soil, and more.

Ongoing monitoring can help to better utilize water resources, and more effectively manage crop nutrient levels.[/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column el_id=”a4″][ultimate_heading main_heading=”Crop Spraying and Spot Spraying, in a Healthy and Environment-Friendly Way”][/ultimate_heading][vc_empty_space][vc_column_text]Crops require consistent fertilization and spraying in order to maintain high yields. Traditionally this was done manually, with vehicles, or even via airplane. These methods are not only inefficient, burdensome, harmful for health and environment, but they can be very costly as well.

Drones can be equipped with large reservoirs, which can be filled with fertilizers, herbicides, or pesticides. Using drones for crop spraying is much safer and cost-effective. Drones can even be operated completely autonomously and programmed to run on specific schedules and routes. For example, if there’s a fungus breakout in a certain section of the crops, drones can be used to spot treat the issue. With the speed at which drones can operate, you can diagnose and treat potential crop issues before they become a widespread issue across the entire farm.

Spot spraying of crops used to be incredibly difficult. If you had an issue with weeds or a certain crop, the entire acreage would have to be sprayed. This is a huge waste of time and resources, as someone will have to walk the entire acreage, plus there are the overall costs of pesticides and the associated environmental cost of chemical usage. With spot spraying afforded by drones, this same task can be accomplished in less time, with fewer monetary resources, and a reduced environmental cost.

Variable spray technology can achieve the goal of applying pesticide on demand. While improving the chemical effects of pesticides, and effectively reducing the use of chemical pesticides.

The technology and the results obtained by it leave no question that low and ultra-low volume spraying is a viable alternative in today’s environmentally aware world. Better results are achieved with fewer chemicals.

With using sprayer drones, the dosage of pesticide is reduced, so it can minimize the pollution of pesticide to the environment and crops. It is not harmful to the operator in the distances when dusting, and the labor intensity is reduced dramatically.

And for Organic/bio farming, formulated bio and natural pesticides/fertilizers are very valuable and rich in every drop and they are often more expensive in comparison with the chemical ones because it’s harder to formulate and produce them, as well as they are producing in less amounts as there is still not very high demand for them in the world yet. Now drones can help to use them in a more effective way, help the agricultural operations, and reducing costs to make it more economically feasible for more farmers to go organic.[/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column el_id=”a5″][ultimate_heading main_heading=”Seed Planting”][/ultimate_heading][vc_empty_space][vc_column_text]Drone planting is a relatively newer technology. This technology helps to minimize the need for on-the-ground planting, which can be costly, time-intensive, and strenuous work. This same drone technology can be adapted and applied to a wide range of farm types, reducing overall planting times and labor costs across the board.

Drones are also very effective and helpful accelerating technology to fight consequences of deforestation and make it easier to reforest.[/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column el_id=”a6″][ultimate_heading main_heading=”Thermal and cold foggers”][/ultimate_heading][vc_empty_space][vc_column_text]Thermal foggers use heat to vaporize a fogging solution and spray it out in form of a fog. Thermal foggers are equipped with a heat barrel that gets preheated to high temperatures using gasoline. The fogging solution is in a liquid form, and when it gets pumped into the heat barrel, it instantly is vaporized. This allows the fogger to produce large count of particles in extremely small size, which all together forms a dense cloud of dry fog. The heating technique thermal foggers use allows to produce extremely tiny particles, as small as 5 microns, averaging from 5-20 micron range.

The two most common ways how one describes foggers are thermal or cold foggers, but from time to time terms like dry and wet foggers are also used. The main difference when it comes to dry or wet fog produced by insect foggers is the droplet size of the fog. Usually fog that consists of droplets that are 10 to 15 microns in their diameter is characterised as dry fog, because the droplets are so small that they create seemingly dry fog hence the name. Whereas fog that consists of droplets that are 20 to 30 microns in their diameter are characterised as wet fog, because it appears wet and more spray or mist than fog like. All fogs that consists of droplets above 30 microns usually are characterised as mists and sprays, not fogs.[/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column el_id=”a7″][ultimate_heading main_heading=”High Efficiency and make the Operations Easier for Dates and other Tall Trees”][/ultimate_heading][vc_empty_space][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][dt_fancy_image][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][dt_fancy_image][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][dt_fancy_image][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_empty_space][vc_column_text]Tall trees are harder to keep the operations going and costs more when it comes to maintenance and human resources. Date trees are good examples. Now technology can help the gardeners and they can use their skills and what traditionally learnt in a more compatible way. Here is story of the pictures above:

For the first time in #Iran, in #Bam, on Dec. 2019, we’ve started a project for Spraying #Organic #date #trees with #Agricultural #Sprayer #Drones using #organic #bio #pesticides and #fertilizers . This #Garden is developed via #Permaculture method almost from 6 years ago.

 

The clip and report of the project (both in Persian and English) is available on the operator company’s website:

https://www.instagram.com/tv/B5nPQZ9lrxm/?igshid=ux8evv5xsi5e[/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column el_id=”a8″][ultimate_heading main_heading=”Pros and cons; the Ashlie’s ankles of technology!”][/ultimate_heading][vc_empty_space][vc_column_text]Any technology has its own pros and cons and it needs an endless process of revise, R & D, improvement and becoming more compatible with nature and what we need. Drones are no exceptions.

As some of the most important pros already mentioned in this articles, now it’s time to mention cons as well, including:

[/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column el_id=”a9″][ultimate_heading main_heading=”Solutions and Effective Business Models”][/ultimate_heading][vc_empty_space][vc_column_text]So what? Like using any technology, everything depends on our needs, situation, responsibility as well as finding effective and functional solution for every limitation. Again, drones are no exception here as well.

So, here I explain some of the best main solutions that have been proved and experienced solutions to make it sustainable to use drones in agriculture:

  1. Regarding to economic/technical challenges, well, these expensive high-tech devices are not supposed to be bought and owned by farmers. They are good for agricultural machinery services companies and investors, that has a continuous cycle of projects and work with hiring enough professional operators and supporters, and thus, this business model can be beneficial for all parties in the cycle in a winner-winner way. Maybe Buying drones for big farms that can dedicate some human resources to use them regularly can be a good option for them, but still the operational services are competitive in price, speed, support and so on.
  2. Regarding to batteries and everything regarding to health and eco-related issues, fortunately there are already very high-efficient recycling technologies and as they are expensive materials so recycling them is usually very profitable industry as well. These solutions can reduce all the wastes to the possible minimum while still under control, to prevent from any leakage or releasing the toxic materials into the environment. It has to be seriously considered, all people and farmers should be aware of it, and in every country, it should be firmly regulated, inspected and monitored with regular reports to clarify what’s happening. It’s possible in every condition, whether the recycling technology is available/has been brought inside the country, or the recycling materials have to be collected and forward to another country/company to be recycled. The environmental protections agencies, recycling companies and NGOs can help here to set strong contractions/conventions.

[/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][dt_fancy_image image_id=”248″ height=”300″][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][dt_fancy_image image_id=”247″ height=”300″][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/3″][dt_fancy_image image_id=”246″ height=”300″][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_empty_space][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column el_id=”a10″][ultimate_heading main_heading=”Conclusion”][/ultimate_heading][vc_empty_space][vc_column_text]Agricultural drones are very efficient in mechanization, and they can be very economical in a suitable business model, plus that –if moderated with the explained conditions- they can be more environment-friendly than most of other related vehicles, older technologies and methods. Research, Study and standards in the developed countries also confirm the benefits and safety of using this technology/vehicle both for conventional and organic farming. And as the technologies develop, their future can be even more shinning.[/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column el_id=”a11″][ultimate_heading main_heading=”Some Informational References and Resources”][/ultimate_heading][vc_empty_space][vc_column_text]

https://www.intechopen.com/books/agricultural-robots-fundamentals-and-applications/fundamental-research-on-unmanned-aerial-vehicles-to-support-precision-agriculture-in-oil-palm-planta

Pros and Cons of Drones in Agriculture: https://drones-pro.com/pros-and-cons-of-drones-in-agriculture/

Written by Moein Ghahremani Nejad[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

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