6/2/2014 Four key questions about farm drones and UAVs - 31/01/2014 - Farmers Weekly FWI Classified Jobs 06 February 2014 UK - Set Location Max: 8° Min: 4° You are here Property Home Academy Machinery Awards Business NFU conference 4x4s Badger ATVs/UTVs and pickups cull Farmplan Arable Community Livestock Poultry CAP Wreckers reformyard Young farmers Subscribe Farm life Crime Videos Cookies & Privacy My Account Events Logout Weather Machinery Four key questions about farm drones and UAVs Oliv er Mark Classifieds Friday 31 January 2014 09:35 Silage Pusher JD 955 BEAVER P9 KIOTI MECHRON Used Massey Ferguson 6170 Tractor Number: ... Used Fendt 2010 Fendt 415 Vario Tractor Number: ... AS Marston 6.5ton trailer for sale in Oxfordshire Valtra A95 4wd Tractor c/w Foreloader for sale in ... A conference on agricultural drones at Harper Adams University last week was certainly well-attended. But will these high-tech/high-price pieces of equipment prove to be the answer to arable farmers’ crop surveillance needs? Oliver Mark reports Take a wander through the halls of any major farm machinery show and you’ll notice that newly-formed companies offering precision agriculture services are popping up like daffodils on a spring morning. The most eye-catching are those offering unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to help fine-tune chemical and fertiliser application plans. The tumbling cost of components parts and the improvements in cameras and mapping systems have made these types of machines well-suited to agricultural life. That’s mainly because they solve a perennial farming problem – how to get a good look at a field almost plant-by-plant. Traditionally, satellites have been used to provide images but these can sometimes be short of detail and may not be available at all when there’s thick cloud cover. See also: Drones could bring benefits to arable farmers GPS-guided UAVs, on the other hand, offer the flexibility of attaching multiple sensors – visible light, infrared or thermal – to determine different features of a crop. These can be used to recognise things like weed types, disease pressures, plant stress, crop damage, nitrogen requirements and yield potential. UAVs can also fly low enough to get a very detailed look at the crop. Rytec C1600 Contractor Flail mower/collector for ... JCB Micro 8008 Mini digger for sale in Oxfordshire Related Content from our CompanyLink Line of insecticides for cereals and oilseed for enhanced crop management Insecticides To know about our crop protection products, contact us Contact Us Precision air seeder equipment with grain singling & placement systems Pneumatic Precision Airplanters Conventional seed drills for mulch sowing or till & drill combinations Conventional seed drills Cost Individual farmers thinking of buying a drone will find the initial purchase cost difficult to stomach. It can be anything from £10,000 for the most basic up to £50,000 versions – so it’s better suited to farmer co-operatives that can get the most use out of them. Prices generally vary according to the design you go for. Fixed wing, aeroplane-shaped UAVs can travel Piloting a UAV The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) governs air space, although its rules seem a little woolly. In simple terms, if you’re flying your drone for your own use then there’s no need to have any qualifications (provided it http://www.fwi.co.uk/articles/31/01/2014/143099/four-key-questions-about-farm-drones-and-uavs.htm 1/3 6/2/2014 further, faster and for longer, but have limited sensor-carrying capabilities. Alternatively, multi-rotor types are more power hungry and chew through the batteries more quickly, but have a decent undercarriage for mounting cameras and sensors. You’ll also need to add the cost of servicing and maintenance to the initial outlay, not to mention that the whole unit might only have a three-year shelf life. It’s also worth bearing in mind that, at best, you’ll manage about 100 flying days per year in the UK given our unpredictable climate. Four key questions about farm drones and UAVs - 31/01/2014 - Farmers Weekly weighs less than 20kg). The limitations are that you must fly within your visual line of sight – 400ft upwards and 500m across – and more than 50m from buildings and people. However, if you’re planning to use your UAV to provide a service (and charge people money accordingly) then the rules are slightly different and you’ll need to apply to the CAA for permission to fly. However, customer charges can reach more than £1,000 a day, so there’s still a very reasonable profit to be made. Data collection The challenge is to turn the pictures provided by the drone into something that can be used to bolster yields. So, rather than hanging a high-end digital camera from the undercarriage, drones can carry a mass of sensors to detect different things. Agrovista is one company conducting trials into the accuracy and calibration of different sensors. It is working with Ursula’s Scout surveillance system to monitor crops at two UK test sites. The first, at Maidwell along the blackgrass corridor of the A14, was surveyed three times by Ursula last year. Kitted out with the correct sensors it was able to count the number of blackgrass heads across the site after different chemical applications. The second site focused on monitoring crop nutritional needs and disease pressures, and the company says that the information gathered could be used to create localised spraying plans and variable rate fertiliser maps for the future. However, spraying technology isn’t quite keeping pace. The obvious answer looks to be direct injection systems – Berthoud launched one at the Sima show last year – to target particular areas of a field with a particular chemical product. Is it realistic? The short answer is yes. But only once it can be made financially viable for http://www.fwi.co.uk/articles/31/01/2014/143099/four-key-questions-about-farm-drones-and-uavs.htm 2/3 6/2/2014 Four key questions about farm drones and UAVs - 31/01/2014 - Farmers Weekly broad-acre combinable crops. That means companies need to it easier for farmers to make full use of the information provided by the surveillance system in a way that allows them to cut input costs or improve yields. 16 0 Comments Farmers Weekly interactive Sort by Best Share Favorite Start the discussion… Be the first to comment. Subscribe Add Disqus to your site About us | Contact us | Advertise | Subscribe | Terms & Conditions | Disclaimer | Privacy policy Services: E-New sletters | Company Link | Blogs | Videos | RSS © 2013 Reed Business Information Limited http://www.fwi.co.uk/articles/31/01/2014/143099/four-key-questions-about-farm-drones-and-uavs.htm 3/3