ᐈ Applications of Drones for agriculture

Drones have been used since the early eighties, but it is now when their practical applications are expanding faster than ever in a variety of uses, thanks to significant investments and relaxation of the regulations governing their use.

Drones for agriculture

Agriculture is perhaps the most promising area. The drones for agriculture will allow to address some very important challenges. The world population is expected to reach nine billion people by 2050 and experts expect agricultural consumption to increase by 70% during the same period of time.

In addition, adverse weather events are on the rise, creating additional obstacles to productivity.

Farmers must adopt revolutionary strategies to produce food, in order to increase productivity and make sustainability a priority and drones applied to agriculture can help in these tasks.

Applications of drones for agriculture

The use of agricultural drones provides high technology, allowing the planning and elaboration of strategies thanks to the collection and processing of data in real time. Here are six ways to use drones during the entire crop cycle.

Soil and field analysis

Drones for agricultural use allow the beginning of the crop cycle, generate accurate three-dimensional maps for soil analysis and are useful in the planning of seed sowing patterns. After sowing, the soil analysis facilitated by the drones provides data for irrigation and nitrogen level management.

Sowing

Some companies have created drone plantation systems that achieve an absorption rate of 75% and reduce planting costs by 85%. These systems release pods with seeds and plant nutrients to the soil, providing the plant with all the nutrients necessary to live.

Drones to spray

The distance measurement equipment (ultrasonic echo and laser as used in the method of detection and measurement of light) allows a drone to adjust the altitude as the topography and geography vary and thus avoid collisions. Therefore, drones can explore the soil and spray the right amount of product, modulating the distance from the ground and spraying in real time for a uniform application.

Greater efficiency is achieved and the amount of chemicals that penetrate groundwater is reduced. In fact, experts estimate that aerial spraying with drones sprayers can be made up to five times faster than with traditional machinery.

Crop monitoring

The extensive fields and the low efficiency in the monitoring of crops are the most important obstacles for agriculture. Crop monitoring is adversely affected by increasingly unpredictable weather conditions, which increase risks and maintenance costs in the field.

Until now, the images of the satellites were the most advanced form of monitoring, but these images had to be ordered in advance, could be taken only once a day and were imprecise. In addition, getting these images was very expensive and their quality was very low. At present, temporal series images can show the precise development of a crop and reveal production inefficiencies, which allows a better management of the crop.

Irrigation

Drones for agriculture with hyperspectral, multispectral or thermal sensors can identify which parts of a crop are dry or need more attention. In addition, once the harvest is growing, the drones allow the calculation of the vegetation index that describes the relative density and health of the crop and shows the amount of energy or heat that the crop emits.

Health assessment of the crop

It is essential to evaluate the health of crops and detect bacterial or fungal infections in trees. By scanning the culture using visible and near infrared light, devices transported by drones can identify which plants reflect different amounts of green light and NIR light. This information can produce multispectral images that track changes in plants and indicate their health.

A quick response can save an entire crop. As soon as a disease is discovered, farmers can apply the necessary solutions and control the crop more precisely, which increases the ability of the plant to overcome a disease. In addition, in case of crop loss, the farmer will be able to document losses more efficiently when making claims to insurance companies.

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