Grain Guide 2018

Six ways drones are revolutionising agriculture Drones – which were initially developed for military purposes – have been used commercially since the 1980s. The development and commercialising of drones lead to distance-controlled drones even being employed in your farming operation or for leisure activities. Drones are employed by agriculturalists to inspect livestock, dams and troughs, for the control of problem animals; to track injured animals during hunting or to observe the condition of the veld, cultivated pastures or crops from the air. Although drones aren’t equipped with navigation normally, it is possible to add it, e.g. for security purposes. Drone technology will give the agriculture industry a high-technology makeover, with planning and strategy based on real-time data gathering and process­ ing. PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) estimates the market for drone-powered solutions in agriculture at $32,4 billion. Following are six ways aerial and ground- based drones will be used throughout the crop cycle:  Soil and field analysis: Drones can be instrumental at the start of the crop cycle. They produce precise 3D maps for early soil analysis, useful in planning seed planting patterns. After planting, drone-driven soil analysis provides data for irrigation and nitrogen-level management.  Planting: Start-ups have created drone-planting systems that achieve an uptake rate of 75% and decrease planting costs by 85%. These systems shoot pods with seeds and plant nutrients into the soil, providing the plant all the nutrients necessary to sustain life.  Crop spraying: Distance-measuring equipment — ultrasonic echoing and lasers such as those used in the light-detection and ranging, or LiDAR, method — enables a drone to adjust altitude as the topography and geography vary, and thus avoid collisions. Consequently, drones can scan the ground and spray the correct amount of liquid, modulating distance from the ground and spraying in real time for even coverage. The result: Increased efficiency with a reduction of in the amount of chemicals penetrating into groundwater. In fact, experts estimate that aerial spraying can be completed up to five times faster with drones than with traditional machinery.  Crop monitoring: Vast fields and low efficiency in crop monitoring together create farming’s largest obstacle. Monitoring challenges are exacerbated by increasingly unpre­ dictable weather conditions, which drive risk and field maintenance costs. Previously, satellite imagery offered the most advanced form of monitoring. But there were drawbacks. Images had to be ordered in advance, could be taken only once a day, and were imprecise. Further, services were extremely costly and the images’ quality typically suffered on certain days. Today, time-series animations can show the precise development of a crop and reveal production inefficiencies, enabling better crop management. 1 2 3 4 116 GRAIN GUIDE 2018 Technology