Spray Drones

[werdna121490]

Any thoughts on spray drones for a cow-calf, hay operation? The guy I work for is looking into buying one to spray the areas in the pasture that we can't get to with a ground rig because of the hills and rocky ground. Eventually we will probably use it for most of our spraying if its as fast/efficient as they say.

 

[SBMF 2015]

Talk with your local Ag Coop and see if they have the ability to spray with a drone.
Work has pastures custom sprayed with on. It works well and is much cheaper than owning one.

 

[kenny thomas]

Unless your doing thousands of acres i agree on hiring it done. Check into the regulations of flying one large enough to spray with. A local company here does pasture but also sprays corn plus spreads Nitrogen on corn.

 

[Dave]

I agree unless you are doing a lot of ground it would be cheaper to have iy done. I know a spray guy here who has one. He said it took him over a year to get the license from the FAA. I don't know if that is because he does work for hire or if everyone is suppose to have that license.

 

[TCRanch]

There are a few that hire out around here and we're having it done this year. Definitely gaining in popularity; K-State even had a workshop on it.

 

[Silver]

A DJI Agras T30 is now considered a medium sized drone, 8 gallon capacity. I think they will cost you around $22K, USD. So a person needs to figure out if it makes sense from both a financial and a practical standpoint.
I can’t speak to how it pencils out financially for someone else, but from a practical use standpoint they are very good at spot spraying, spraying in conditions and areas you wouldn’t take a wheeled sprayer, and a drone like theT30 can easily spray 150 acres in a day at 2 gallons per acre. The guys that are set up good claim they can do 40 acres an hour or better. If you need to up your water rate production goes down fast.
Here in Canada to be legal you need a drone pilot license. To spray herbicide if it ever becomes legal we’d also need an applicators license.

 

[RDFF]

At 2 gal./a, I'd have to wonder if coverage will be adequate to be as effective as ground spraying, and if the chemical rate can be high enough, to adequately do the job long term. I get that there may be some places where ground equipment can be pretty difficult to impossible, but I'm sure that 2 gal/acre rate, if it's approved by the chemical manufacturer, is an "accomodation" to at least allow for the arial drone application... but I'd also bet that low of a rate makes them pretty nervous about "quality of control". "Low Rate" ground application is 10 gal/a, and they've been frowning on that for many if not most chemicals, because they want more droplet coverage on more of the plant/leaves.

Big difference between "able to apply" at that low of a rate, and effective efficacy of the product. And even if it IS effective initially when you begin to apply, consider how "rates" always seem to increase over time, as the weeds begin to adapt and develop resistance. "DON'T CHEAT ON RATES" seems to be a pretty consistent recommendation... in order to avoid developing resistance. If you're going to ding them, you want to ding them good, and ding ALL of them, so that there are no survivor plants that get set back, but then recover.

 

[Brute 23]

There are multiple companies around here that already do it. They are having pretty good success they claim due to the tiny drops and being sprayed from around 10' up. The down side is having to refill so often and needing pretty good weather to spray.

 

[Shank3r]

I've watched a ton of video's on YT of Spray Drone demo's, with Millennial Farmers video's being especially informative for using drones in a row crop scenario.

What I've heard about, but seen no published study's or even advertisements in using Spray Drone's to spot spray mesquite/huisache and the effectiveness. I'm very interested in the topic, especially if it's automated in the same way row crop application is but I can't imagine a drone operator manually flying a drone over identified targets be any faster than me on a 4wheeler.

 

[Dave]

The down side is having to refill so often and needing pretty good weather to spray.

I know some people here who have a lot of row crops. They said the outfit who came and sprayed for them had 3 drones. One spraying, one being refilled, and one getting fresh batteries installed. They said it was a constant movement.

 

[RDFF]

I know some people here who have a lot of row crops. They said the outfit who came and sprayed for them had 3 drones. One spraying, one being refilled, and one getting fresh batteries installed. They said it was a constant movement.

Yup, exactly. The only way to do it efficiently. You need a couple guys just "managing" the reload/rebattery part. But if you have enough "in the assembly line", you can get it done, for sure. Like I've said before though, they can't have drones large enough to carry a large payload, because of the potential for nefarious individuals to load it up with a bomb and go undetected. FAA regulations.

 

[Lucky]

I called some folks that started spraying with a drone last summer. They talked a good game and seemed to have a good product but cost was too high for me. The ground rigs charge $6 an acre application cost and the wanted $11 an acre. I didn't ask them about chemical cost.

 

[Silver]

At 2 gal./a, I'd have to wonder if coverage will be adequate to be as effective as ground spraying, and if the chemical rate can be high enough, to adequately do the job long term. I get that there may be some places where ground equipment can be pretty difficult to impossible, but I'm sure that 2 gal/acre rate, if it's approved by the chemical manufacturer, is an "accomodation" to at least allow for the arial drone application... but I'd also bet that low of a rate makes them pretty nervous about "quality of control". "Low Rate" ground application is 10 gal/a, and they've been frowning on that for many if not most chemicals, because they want more droplet coverage on more of the plant/leaves.

Big difference between "able to apply" at that low of a rate, and effective efficacy of the product. And even if it IS effective initially when you begin to apply, consider how "rates" always seem to increase over time, as the weeds begin to adapt and develop resistance. "DON'T CHEAT ON RATES" seems to be a pretty consistent recommendation... in order to avoid developing resistance. If you're going to ding them, you want to ding them good, and ding ALL of them, so that there are no survivor plants that get set back, but then recover.

2 gpa is more than enough for glyphosate. 1.5 is better. Not 10 gpa. Not the case for Grazon and many others. Know your product.

 

[Brute 23]

I called some folks that started spraying with a drone last summer. They talked a good game and seemed to have a good product but cost was too high for me. The ground rigs charge $6 an acre application cost and the wanted $11 an acre. I didn't ask them about chemical cost.

Its definitely meant for places a ground rig can't get.

 

[RDFF]

2 gpa is more than enough for glyphosate. 1.5 is better. Not 10 gpa. Not the case for Grazon and many others. Know your product.

Yup, I'm aware that more often than not, the recommendation with glyphosate is LESS water/a, not more, and 10gpa is the general recommendation for ground applied equipment. When I was spraying mine doing row crops, that was one of the reasons that I liked glyphosate... I could get more acres out of a tank. That said, most of the others generally go the other direction... they want MORE water per acre.

And it's kind of hard for me to imagine that anybody would want to spray a "pasture", particularly if spot spraying, with a broad spectrum, "kill everything" herbicide like glyphosate. More likely one would want to be using something that would only take out the broadleaves but still allow the grasses to continue (2,4D, Grazon, etc.). Unless of course the goal is simply to clear EVERYTHING out, and start over by reseeding. Some of the posters here are from TX... mesquite, etc. Gonna be pretty hard to "reseed" even if that stuff is dead, till you've been able to clear out the dead brush. So all the more reason to not kill off any grasses that might be out there.

 

[Silver]

Yup, I'm aware that more often than not, the recommendation with glyphosate is LESS water/a, not more, and 10gpa is the general recommendation for ground applied equipment. When I was spraying mine doing row crops, that was one of the reasons that I liked glyphosate... I could get more acres out of a tank. That said, most of the others generally go the other direction... they want MORE water per acre.

And it's kind of hard for me to imagine that anybody would want to spray a "pasture", particularly if spot spraying, with a broad spectrum, "kill everything" herbicide like glyphosate. More likely one would want to be using something that would only take out the broadleaves but still allow the grasses to continue (2,4D, Grazon, etc.). Unless of course the goal is simply to clear EVERYTHING out, and start over by reseeding. Some of the posters here are from TX... mesquite, etc. Gonna be pretty hard to "reseed" even if that stuff is dead, till you've been able to clear out the dead brush. So all the more reason to not kill off any grasses that might be out there.

My point was simply that drones can be a very effective all around sprayer on the farm or ranch. Whether it be used to terminate hundreds of acres of hay at 2 gpa or spot spraying at 5 gpa they get the job done very effectively and where can you buy a ground driven sprayer new for less than $30K?
Spraying 24D aerial application is usually 3-3.5 gpa, and you can do a lot of acres at that rate.

 

[RDFF]

My point was simply that drones can be a very effective all around sprayer on the farm or ranch. Whether it be used to terminate hundreds of acres of hay at 2 gpa or spot spraying at 5 gpa they get the job done very effectively and where can you buy a ground driven sprayer new for less than $30K?
Spraying 24D aerial application is usually 3-3.5 gpa, and you can do a lot of acres at that rate.

Yup... about 2 1/2 acres/fill up... on a "large capacity" drone. I'm not saying that they don't have a place... just that they're right now kind of the "latest and greatest, new fangled mesmirization" that's got everybody enammered. And because of that "enammorization" that MARKETING has created, there's gonna be a huge (and very intentional) market void to fill... everybody wants to say that they're doing the latest craze.

Just another one of the "shinies"...

And at some point much sooner than we would like to think, like the 8 track tape, or the cassette tape, or the "Play Station", or the Wii, or "plasma TV's"... (should I keep going?)... this too will become a fad of the past. Certainly the "hardware" itself will... I don't expect that the hardware will be long lived at all, and the concept will evolve tremendously... it's clearly in its infancy yet at this point. And we as an industry will evolve along with it. The "early adopters" will be the ones that pay the big price though. This is just the newest "shiny" in this market space.

Is anybody asking "why" we've got the issues we're trying to "correct" very quickly with the use of these "tools" in the first place? Why, for example, in Texas and New Mexico, do we now have a literal "invasion" of mesquite, where there used to be grasslands? Mesquite that we now feel we have to use these kind of tools to overcome? Or at least we THINK we do...

Or is there another solution? Maybe we can restore the grasslands to these regions by working more in harmony with the natural processes? And if that "maybe" potentially could have SOME level of merit (and it may not, but it certainly will be perceived as though it doesn't if we don't at least consider that as an option), perhaps we DON'T need these "tools"... perhaps these tools ultimately even actually are an impediment, and over the long term, work to prevent our ability to restore the landscape to what it once was, and still has the potential to be. If we're unwilling to consider that question realistically, we will never be able to see what might be possible with a different perspective.

How many years did it take to get where we are? Did we arrive here, from where we once were, over the course of a year or two, or did we get here over hundreds of years, and multiple generations? If that's the case, it's not likely to be restored in a year or two. It's going to take time, and an understanding of how the natural world functions... something that we've generally ignored for the most part over the last at least 75 years (since WWII at least)... we've been almost entirely focused on forcing as much as we can out of "nature"... using artificial stimulants and crutches. There's been very little attempt to understand what the natural processes actually do, on a broad scale. There's "collateral damage" that takes place, when we artificially manipulate the natural processes.

Nature doesn't EVER go out and inject a broad spectrum "herbicide" into the mix... unless you consider that "fire" is just such a thing... but in that case, I would argue it is not (fire historically has been as much a part of nature as grass and trees are). Nature generally works in small changes over long periods of time, attempting to achieve "balance", with a little bit of everything thrown into the very diverse mix. The only time that it exhibits massive changes in a short period of time is like with a hurricane, or a massive flood event, or a volcano, etc. And those typically are not "world-wide" events, they're fairly "localized", in the scheme of things. Consider the "global scale" of the application of a product like glyphosate, in comparison.

 

[Silver]

Yup... about 2 1/2 acres/fill up... on a "large capacity" drone. I'm not saying that they don't have a place... just that they're right now kind of the "latest and greatest, new fangled mesmirization" that's got everybody enammered. And because of that "enammorization" that MARKETING has created, there's gonna be a huge (and very intentional) market void to fill... everybody wants to say that they're doing the latest craze.

Just another one of the "shinies"...

And at some point much sooner than we would like to think, like the 8 track tape, or the cassette tape, or the "Play Station", or the Wii, or "plasma TV's"... (should I keep going?)... this too will become a fad of the past. Certainly the "hardware" itself will... I don't expect that the hardware will be long lived at all, and the concept will evolve tremendously... it's clearly in its infancy yet at this point. And we as an industry will evolve along with it. The "early adopters" will be the ones that pay the big price though. This is just the newest "shiny" in this market space.

Is anybody asking "why" we've got the issues we're trying to "correct" very quickly with the use of these "tools" in the first place? Why, for example, in Texas and New Mexico, do we now have a literal "invasion" of mesquite, where there used to be grasslands? Mesquite that we now feel we have to use these kind of tools to overcome? Or at least we THINK we do...

Or is there another solution? Maybe we can restore the grasslands to these regions by working more in harmony with the natural processes? And if that "maybe" potentially could have SOME level of merit (and it may not, but it certainly will be perceived as though it doesn't if we don't at least consider that as an option), perhaps we DON'T need these "tools"... perhaps these tools ultimately even actually are an impediment, and over the long term, work to prevent our ability to restore the landscape to what it once was, and still has the potential to be. If we're unwilling to consider that question realistically, we will never be able to see what might be possible with a different perspective.

How many years did it take to get where we are? Did we arrive here, from where we once were, over the course of a year or two, or did we get here over hundreds of years, and multiple generations? If that's the case, it's not likely to be restored in a year or two. It's going to take time, and an understanding of how the natural world functions... something that we've generally ignored for the most part over the last at least 75 years (since WWII at least)... we've been almost entirely focused on forcing as much as we can out of "nature"... using artificial stimulants and crutches. There's been very little attempt to understand what the natural processes actually do, on a broad scale. There's "collateral damage" that takes place, when we artificially manipulate the natural processes.

Nature doesn't EVER go out and inject a broad spectrum "herbicide" into the mix... unless you consider that "fire" is just such a thing... but in that case, I would argue it is not (fire historically has been as much a part of nature as grass and trees are). Nature generally works in small changes over long periods of time, attempting to achieve "balance", with a little bit of everything thrown into the very diverse mix. The only time that it exhibits massive changes in a short period of time is like with a hurricane, or a massive flood event, or a volcano, etc. And those typically are not "world-wide" events, they're fairly "localized", in the scheme of things. Consider the "global scale" of the application of a product like glyphosate, in comparison.

So really you’re not against drones per se, you’re just anti herbicide

 

[RDFF]

So really you’re not against drones per se, you’re just anti herbicide

Yeah, you could say that. I AM, in general, against the use of herbicides. That's not to say that I wouldn't EVER, EVER use one though, and I certainly HAVE used them, including prophylactically, in the past. But I certainly would absolutely PREFER to not ever use one. They are "poisons", no matter how we slice it. And I don't think they're doing any of us any good, environmentally or healthwise.

And as far as drones go, I think they'll definitely have their place, but I also think that they're getting alot of attention right now because they seem "cool"... eventually that "cool factor" will wear off, and they'll also be improved upon, and ultimately, they'll probably be relegated to some pretty limited circumstances because of practicality. But I could be entirely wrong... just how I see it right now.

Again, it's one of these "you do you" issues... and I'll absolutely stand up for your right to do you! And right along with that point, I'll also stand up for your right to express your opinion, just as I do... and that's all it is, a personal opinion... that may differ from yours. Differing opinions are good... they make us consider the merits of things that we might otherwise not ever begin to consider at all. A different set of eyes looking at something can sometimes open up our own eyes...

 

[Silver]

Yeah, you could say that. I AM, in general, against the use of herbicides. That's not to say that I wouldn't EVER, EVER use one though, and I certainly HAVE used them, including prophylactically, in the past. But I certainly would absolutely PREFER to not ever use one. They are "poisons", no matter how we slice it. And I don't think they're doing any of us any good, environmentally or healthwise.

And as far as drones go, I think they'll definitely have their place, but I also think that they're getting alot of attention right now because they seem "cool"... eventually that "cool factor" will wear off, and they'll also be improved upon, and ultimately, they'll probably be relegated to some pretty limited circumstances because of practicality. But I could be entirely wrong... just how I see it right now.

Again, it's one of these "you do you" issues... and I'll absolutely stand up for your right to do you! And right along with that point, I'll also stand up for your right to express your opinion, just as I do... and that's all it is, a personal opinion... that may differ from yours. Opinions are good... they make us consider the merits of things that we might otherwise not ever begin to consider at all. A different set of eyes looking at something can sometimes open up our own eyes...

Right. Thanks for clearing that up. And so back to the OP:

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Any thoughts on spray drones for a cow-calf, hay operation? The guy I work for is looking into buying one to spray the areas in the pasture that we can't get to with a ground rig because of the hills and rocky ground. Eventually we will probably use it for most of our spraying if its as fast/efficient as they say.

————————

With regards to the above, I stand by my opinion that a drone can cover a lot of ground, and is an economical method of applying herbicide. I will add that they are handy for applying things other than herbicide as well. And I will add that my opinions are based on first hand experience as a drone owner, not merely on supposition and speculation.