Agricultural Drones in 2022:
Making Way for Sustainable Farming
When it is the harvest season, most farmers play a guessing game on whether they have sufficient yield or not. A few decades ago, agriculturists often wondered if weather and soil conditions were ideal for crop growth and cultivation. Climate change has also contributed to the challenges in the agriculture industry for the past years.
Farmers need to be creative and resourceful in facing these challenges. Drones have been used in various industries and more prominently in farming. The agriculture industry has utilized drone farming that assists farmers with:
- plant and environmental information
- irrigation systems and equipment
- overseeing resources such as pesticides and fertilizers
What does the future of drone farming hold? Let us look.
Innovating Agriculture Data with Drone Technology
Not too long ago, drones were toys and devices for photography. Recently, drones have become a fundamental asset in various fields. Drones are booming in the agricultural sector, especially for small farms.
Gathering agriculture data and mapping out areas in the field helps farmers visualize. An efficient agricultural drone shows vital regions of creating insight into crops' cultivation and growth. An experienced agricultural drone company should aim to eliminate guessing in farming.
Drones capture real-time data and convert it into valuable information using algorithms. As a result, drone utilization in a variety of agricultural applications, including monitoring the following specifications:
- Plant health: pest infection, which results in color alteration.
- Plant height: recording any changes in plant height and density.
- Soil analysis: determining the amount of nutrients and chemicals vital for plant health.
- Water stress: areas in the farm field where crops lack watering.
- Plant Scouting: normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) uses color differentiation for plant monitoring.
- Vegetation indices: treatment efficiency, detecting irregularity, crop yield, and phenology.
Remote sensor technology assists in detecting any threat that can damage crops and fields. Reducing the damage of crops increases a farm's profitability and yield.
Drone Data for Building Sustainable Farming
Agricultural drone companies have become increasingly used in the farming sector as a practical approach. Drone companies provide sustainable agricultural management that allows farmers and agricultural engineers to streamline operations. It is also vital to note that agriculturists gain insight into crop data and how to use it for their cultivation.
Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) is excellent for accurately surveying vast acres of farmland. Drone farming considers characteristics such as slope and elevation to determine the best planting prescriptions. Agriculturists benefit from precise drone data's replanting decisions, pruning activities, and crop model refinement.
Drones play a crucial part in creating sustainable farming, and they will take farming to a completely new level. Agricultural drones are a low-cost approach to collect data on various crop conditions in a short amount of time.
What to Consider Before Using an Agricultural Drone
There are plenty of agricultural drones for sale in the market. Aside from picking farming drones that are user-friendly and inexpensive, what else should be recognized? Below are five things to look at before diving into done farming technology.
#1 Determine Farming Goals
First, farm owners need to ask themselves: what do they want? What do they want to focus on most? Farming can extend from field surveillance, cattle management, seed germination, and many more.
Determining the farm's fundamental tasks makes the most of drone farming.
#2 Selecting Drone Hardware
Choosing suitable hardware for a farm depending on its core tasks is crucial. An infrared camera, for example, is required for crop health monitoring. A drone that is highly mobile suits well for vast farmland. Finally, the tasks in the field determine the capabilities of the chosen drone.
#3 Choosing the Appropriate Drone Software Program
The agricultural drone software process the data collected by the drone. Depending on the agriculture drone company, usually, the software is provided. The software program can have flight and navigation software, mapping, data, and image processing. In some cases, premade drone software is not enough, and it is better to have customized drone software.
#4 Creating Customized Drone Software
A customized drone software necessitates a basic understanding of the data collecting, analysis, and visualization processes at first. For software algorithms to recognize particular patterns suggesting plant conditions, a thorough knowledge of plant physiology is required.
Picking the best image processing method and how drone data collects variables. Farming variables include:
- Humidity
- Temperature
- Field topography
#5 Familiarity with Legal Drone Use
Different areas have varying laws regarding commercial drone use. Hence, drone farming needs to have registration for authorized use. Owners must be familiar with the list of drones allowed for usage and operation. Rules for drone operation are vital since farm owners or workers can be held liable in an accident.
ZenaDrone 1000 Is the Drone of the Future
ZenaDrone 1000 is an intelligent unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) that incorporates machine learning software and artificial intelligence (AI). ZenaDrone modern drone technology is essential to provide sustainable farming and improve overall yield to agriculture.
