Where is the research currently at with drone/uav usage for large acreage application for pesticides and fertilizer in agricultural context?
I listened to the latest podcast episode about drone use and it seemed to lean more towards data collection and disease screening. Curious if there has been any recent progress with drones for spraying in the US since the OSU article from a year ago?
Could there be a separate class of certification with the FAA for agricultural utility drones?
Any opinions or speculation on the viability for this technology?
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This is a great question @dlowehart. I know that the ag market is much farther along than the turf market, but it’s coming. The main area that I see this being used in turfgrass systems is in herbicide sprays for native areas to avoid tire tracks. I think Shawn Askew at VA Tech is doing some work on this and so are others. One of the challenges that I remember them talking about at a recent conference is getting the rate, calibration and evenness of application correct. Shawn was doing some dye work looking at placement and it was all over the place. Also, no pesticide labels for T&O mention aerial applications on the label (to my knowledge) so technically applying these this way would be illegal. I’m guessing that will change quickly, but that’s my understanding of some of the challenges.
Here’s a link to a paper that Shawn recently published.
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