Best Agriculture Drone for Spraying Fertilizer and Pesticides

Agricultural drones have revolutionised the farming industry with high-tech cameras and sensors that can translate data and images into relevant information. Agricultural drones for spraying fertiliser or pesticides (also known as crop dusting drones are making pesticide and fertiliser application more precise and produce more uniform crop growth.

Whether it’s crop growth or pest infestation—good news or bad—having the figures and visuals reported straight to the farmer makes this a technological breakthrough for any farming business.

*2023 Update: The DJI Agras T40 is currently one of the best crop dusting drones available, checkout the full article here: DJI Agras T40 .

Types of Drones in Agriculture

There are many types of agricultural drones in the market that showcase all sorts of imaging features, scientific data and analysis, and add-on gadgets. Each one comes with merit, and the choice depends on the farmer’s budget, size, and feature requirements.

What’s important is that it performs the job according to its design and function specifications.

Here are the common classifications of drones available. Market offerings continuously evolve, and you’ll come across hybrid versions or all-in-one models.

Fixed Wing Drones– The fixed wing drone looks and functions like a tiny airplane. They partially glide so can have much longer air time. Flight time is optimised with its efficiency, stability, and speed. This is the best choice for a farmer who wants to cover expansive areas. Linear flight plans can take advantage of the drone’s speed. Just like an airplane, this requires space to land or a runway for good measure.

Multi-Rotar Type Drone – The most commonly known drone is the multi-rotor drone, which has about 4 to 8 rotors or propellers. It can launch and land vertically and is easy to maneuvre across challenging areas. Hovering is its specialty if there is a need to scout and inspect difficult areas or render 3D models. A larger drone boasts of more payload capacity (for add-ons and sprayers), but the added weight will, of course, also drain battery power reducing the total flight time.

Camera types

The drone camera and sensors vary widely, depending on what is being measured or scanned such as multispectral data.

Visual cameras can render the basic imaging, snapshots, or viewing of the main fields, while thermal cameras can measure heat and temperature.

Multispectral cameras can detect wavelengths not visible to the human eye. This powerful camera can perform vegetative analysis, analyze crops, and pinpoint irrigation stress or even pests. Add-on accessories may include a global positioning system (GPS) which may be quite useful for cattle ranching and light sensors that can overcome challenging weather.

Best Agriculture Drone for Spraying Fertilizer and Pesticides

One of the sought-for features of an all-around drone is precision farming. Spraying fertilizer and pesticides requires a lot of thorough work and manual labour. Deploying a drone minimizes water wastage and environmental impact—while cutting down spraying time by more than half. For the farmer and his crew, this also means less footwork and travel needed. There is also an indirect health impact of minimized exposure to the chemicals.

Before the spraying application, an agricultural drone renders a clear map of the area. By determining infested or weak sections, flight plans can be set to target those areas that require fertilizer or pesticides specifically. The detailed analysis of the landscape and planning of the actual requirements help save on labour hours and pesticide costs.

Deploying an agricultural drone for this purpose, such as the Agras T16 by DJI is sure to promote productivity and improved returns. Equipped with 8 rotors, the Agras T16 drone has the strength and payload capacity of about 10kg of fluid and can cover about 10 acres per trip. The pilot has the power to change the nozzle settings and flight plan as needed. Settings are adjustable, depending on the spraying intensity required for the job. All in all, this drone can complete the spraying job 60x faster than the manual method. Precision and speed account for a better yield of the farm.

Drone with Infrared Camera for Agriculture

Infrared cameras are as remarkable as they sound. This imaging technology equips drones to monitor plant growth and health conditions. The use of thermal or infrared imaging helps identify thermal radiation or temperature of the area—without the need for contact or getting too close to the crops.

Intelligent sensors can identify the crop type and what stage it is in the life cycle. By capturing the light absorbed and reflected by plants, they can determine plant health, barren areas, and sparse vegetation. Scanning an entire area all at once gives a snapshot of troubled lands, pest-infested regions, and potentially dying crops.

Aside from just analyzing the overall state of the field, thermal imagery allows deep-diving into the water requirements and stress level of the crops. These are conditions that even the trained eye cannot see. Green-colored crops don’t always equate to healthy plants—they can be green and stressed at the same time—and that’s what the infrared camera can detect and report.

All these data and indices put together assesses crop conditions and quickly suggest methods for improvement.

The EVO II Dual R by Autel Robotics records temperature values for each individual pixel for analysis. Autel drones come with flight mapping software to automate the path for the drone. The older version, FLIR, is slightly more expensive as its manufactured in the US which is a requirement for some companies. If this isn’t an issue for you, the EVO II is a great option at a lower price.

Crop Health Monitoring Using Drones

Drones prove to be farming allies with their capability to map out the area, assess conditions, and give the farmer real-time data. In being able to execute remedial actions immediately, farmers can preserve and improve crop health at all times.

Equipped with cameras and impeccable flight time and durability, drones can easily scan the farm area to perform the following:

View high-resolution imagery for plant counting, plot statistics, and detection of compromised areas.
Analyze plant height and density—and at the same time evaluate their health level.
Determine the vegetation indices.
Check for troublesome areas or possible pest infestation or weeds.
Make sure that the water or irrigation is operating properly—and areas around it receive sufficient hydration.

Drones deliver the benefits of seamless collection, management, and analysis of the data for the farmer’s reference and action. Through its multispectral camera and efficient coverage of the area, data is collected in a timely fashion.

Data-based and accurate decisions can only result in savings, efficient workload, and a positive environmental impact. All these are aligned and support every farmer’s goals to raise healthy crops, increase productivity, minimize costs and damage, and to improve bottom line. Drones for farming introduce an evolving innovation to help farmers effortlessly reach their goals faster and with long-term benefits.

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