Drones, Plant health, Input Costs, Water Use, and Variable Rate Applications
Harnessing smart technologies. Bolstering regenerative efforts. Treading lighter. Reducing waste. And building sustainability into the DNA of the farming operation.
Large-scale agriculture is saturated with the pursuit of higher yields and bigger profits. Often at the expense of the environment and notions of [real] longterm sustainability.
Not to mention challenges like extreme weather, biodiversity loss, and soil depletion.
The current situation has forced us to reassess farming tactics in many parts of the world.
Drones and AI are playing a crucial role in making cultivation more sustainable. Providing farmers with data to improve efficiencies. Reducing energy consumption, and reducing costly chemical inputs. All while maintaining harvest sizes, and most of all, securing incomes.
The mountain ahead is the need to prioritise regenerative and sustainable farming techniques. Those that enhance soil health, reduce chemical inputs, and promote biodiversity.
This approach will have direct and indirect implications for energy efficiency.
This lofty goal is crucial. It will also develop a systematic habit of lowering carbon emissions. While maintaining focus on food security and quality - which remains essential.
It's well known that one key area requiring change is soil management. Heavy machinery is compacting arable land, significantly hindering crop yields.
Large-scale agriculture still remains reliant on tractors and other heavy equipment. These exert immense pressure on the soil as they traverse fields. This agri-traffic causes the soil to become densely packed and compressed.
This compaction reduces the space between soil particles. Limiting root penetration, while excluding oxygen. Hindering the development of a healthy root systems. Without sufficient room to access water, air, and therefore nutrients... crops struggle to thrive.
Additionally, compacted soil has a reduced ability to actually retain moisture. Spaces between particles are smaller; the ground less porous. Making it more vulnerable to drought stress.
Compaction will also impair drainage, increasing its susceptibility to water-logging during wet periods. Compacted soils have low infiltration rates. Water stands without permeating downwards as it otherwise would.
This water-logging accelerates the spread of pathogens. Roots drown. It's a common cause of plant health decline. A condition that leads to significant yield losses. And losses that become a long-term problem in the affected area. Rendering fields economically unsustainable to manage. The plants are simply not paying for themselves compared to the input costs per season.
To address these challenges, farmers are improving their practices:
Limiting in-field traffic, and using lighter machinery.
Employing wider, lower-pressure tyres to reduce soil compaction.
Making use of tech-forward and innovative solutions.
Innovations include sophisticated in-field telemetry, remote-sensing technologies and cloud-based platforms. Together these detect, monitor, quantify, and deliver insights on soil compaction severity.
To go a step further, farmers pair insights with mobile applications. These allow for efficient data capture in-field. Actions such as inspections or recording intervention steps. AI-backed mobile applications are also enhancing in-field sampling methods.
“Modern 4IR tools provide farmers with critical data to make informed decisions. Pivotal to promoting healthier crop development and lowering variance across and within fields. An important step towards increasingly sustainable farming practices.”
Furthermore, drone technology is being applied to optimise orchard performance, while minimising in-field traffic, or simply to cover more ground more effectively in terms of monitoring fields.
Drone us of course includes chemical spraying, insect baiting, cover crop seeding, and beneficial insect releases too. And tree health detection is an impactful exercise, as is conducting a plant census survey.
Insurance-related surveys, growth progress reporting, and surveys done after severe weather, add further value to the drone use-case.
Outside of applying chemicals, conducting health scans, or conducting surveys for insurance purposes, drones are also enhancing irrigation systems management.
Water management is another crucial aspect of sustainable farming. Precise water use has one of the most significant impacts on crop health. Particularly when nutrients, both organic and synthetic are delivered through increasingly sophisticated irrigation systems.
Well-managed irrigation practices account for specific crop requirements. While climate data, in-soil sensors, and remote sensing technologies empower tailored nutrition programmes.
Utilising thermal sensors and AI, farmers are detecting anomalies and quantifying orchard variance. Identifying inefficiencies and their likely causes without requiring extra in-field traffic.
Data on transpiration uniformity and plant stress enables farmers to reduce or replace costly traditional inputs. This includes energy use, ultimately lowering agricultural emissions in the process.
An Aerobotics case study (Duck River Farm, Portugal) highlights how drones are revolutionising precision agriculture:
Can you imagine cultivating almonds across 3,000 hectares? Monitoring each tree in detail becomes a real challenge. Especially when attempting to identify underperforming trees affected by water shortages.
However, Duck River (using high-resolution thermal imaging via drone flight) detected trees with low transpiration rates. These correlated with poor canopy health.
Investigations revealed a misplaced drip line. This line alone was impacting 125 trees, and 18 ruptured lines were affecting 825 trees. These discoveries safeguarded trees with a lifetime revenue exceeding €90,000 (± $94,000).
Over and above insights that fuel efficient water use, it's clear that drone surveys also provide comprehensive plant health and canopy status statistics. This information allows production managers to prioritise interventions. With less of a focus on a blanket approach to crop management.
Drone-derived insights are then integrated with sustainable farming practices. Such as reduced tillage, and indication of areas requiring additional organic matter, or well-managed cover cropping. Techniques recognised as vital for maintaining soil health.
Additionally, reducing in-field traffic and regular tillage lowers the carbon footprint of farming. In effect, decreasing reliance on fossil fuels which still power most agricultural machinery.
Given the energy intensiveness of traditional farming techniques, modern agriculture must explore more sustainable and efficient alternatives.
Remote sensing and in-field AgTech that works in harmony with nature is of paramount importance. Helping us to tread lighter, work efficiently, and manage resources effectively. Building sustainability into the DNA of the farming operation.
Technologies such as satellites and in-field telemetry, provide farmers with a clearer view of problem areas and changes in-field. Allowing them to apply inputs more precisely.
The elephant in the room is the overuse of chemicals for plant growth and eliminating pests, and this remains a significant challenge.
Traditional inorganic fertilisers are produced through energy-intensive processes. Extracting raw materials (natural gas, phosphate rock, etc) and converting them into plant-available compounds.
These inputs are not only costly, time and energy-intensive, but moreover have a negative impact on biodiversity on-farm, and the environment as a whole.
But yes. Sustainable alternatives are gaining traction. Variable Rate Applications (VRA) use is fast becoming the norm. A relatively easy go-to for AgTech newbies with a comparatively low barrier to entry.
VRA can be as basic or complicated as the operation wants to make it: From manual granular applications (guided by drone data metrics) to automated granular spreading - like that done with a Red Ant machine - there are a lot of options.
Calibrated bio-spreading of compost mulch, based of zonal drone-derived metrics. Spot spraying by knapsack, or by drone. Or fully autonomous GPS-guided rigs like those from GUSS. The options are numerous when it comes to VRA, and there’s a place for at least some kind of variable application method for most farming operations.
Above: Spreading compost mulch variably according to zonal outputs after a recent drone survey as part of a structured orchard regeneration plan. Increasing general tree health, building healthy soil, ensuring sustainable yields.
Another Aerobotics case study illustrates the benefits of drone data-backed VRA applications:
Kriegler Farms in the Western Cape, South Africa grows premium table grapes. Fertilisers used to be applied uniformly - the same amount everywhere. But this was soon to change.
Using high-res drone imagery and AI, vine health variability across vineyards was established. Precise nutritional programmes developed. And systems put in place to apply fertiliser only where needed.
The VRA approach reduced fertiliser and ameliorant inputs by 75,367 pounds (34,186 kilograms). While increasing yields by 9% and boosting revenue by $125,595.
With VRA strategies in place, production teams are reducing inputs and stretching their available budgets. The upside of reduced chemical use, and reducing traffic in-field is an added bonus.
Furthermore, these types of practices have positive ripple effects across the farming environment. Crop health, soil health health, and operational sustainability included.
Drone flight comparisons (across surveys and metrics) show how effective interventions have been. Data interpretations and monitoring changes over time aids in managing agricultural inputs. Changes are often quantified and results objective.
Drone technologies (combined with in-field mobile apps) flag concerns and quantify infestation severity. Right down to the number of affected plants and the urgency of intervention/s required.
A next step includes deploying beneficial insects in targeted areas using solutions like SkyBugs by Aerobotics. Or identifying release area with precision for hand-releases.
Furthermore, online platforms with “smart sampling” capabilities combine cloud-based technology with mobile applications. Allowing farmers to sample from representative areas, problem hotspots, or variances in yield.
Yield sampling itself is a contentious topic. Smart sampling techniques such as those that leverage AI, are removing doubts.
AI-generated sample points are helping to improve data integrity and representativeness. Modern techniques such as these lower the margin of error when it comes to yield forecasting.
As precision agriculture continues to evolve... the integration of drone technology, AI platforms, and sustainable farming practices will form part of the broader solution. An answer to shaping a more resilient and environmentally responsible way of producing food.
Smart technologies like those of new age mobile app’s are transforming the agricultural landscape. Drones are continuing to play a larger role in farming with each passing season. Replacing doubt with objective data results.
Cloud-based platforms also allow data to be processed off-site, and reviewed from afar. Consultants and experts can weigh-in with advice from anywhere in the world.
Asynchronous global companies are sharing notes, results, and strategies with ease. The farming world has never been more connected. Knowledge sharing has therefore gained a new kind of momentum; in a new age of farming.
Let’s work with it as best we can!