Drones on the farm, why/why not?

Farm Advice
#1

Hello,

I’m a university student doing research on drone usage in agriculture.

I’m really interested in what problems farmers have found in the practical application of drones/UAS?

I’d really appreciate some discussion on the following questions:

What automation/machinery do you use already on your farm that you find advanced? What do you appreciate about those tools? What do you find frustrating about those tools?

What logistical/implementation problems make drone systems not worthwhile?

What benefits would drones have to provide to make it worth the hassle?

How important is the autonomy of the drone? Should it fly itself, or would you prefer to fly it manually?

Is there [on average, at least]one to two days a week where weather is flyable (not windy, raining/snowing/hailing) in your area?

Thanks for your time!

#2

When it comes about sprayers:

  • It’s not that easy to have a good nozzle system without a very mechaninc-stable boom. It still easier to get the desired stability for it’s spraying system with those we have on heavy machinery.

  • In order to make the drone stable, you’d have to use a shorter boom than an heavy machinery can support. So, when using a short boom you’d have to make a bunch of refews on your reservatory and that would increase the time of an application and could even impact on it’s precision.

  • The wind is always a problem when you talk about spraying systems, and that problem getts bigger when you’re using any kind of flying machine.