(Alice McFarlane/farmnewsNOW Staff)

By Alice McFarlane

Drones

The future of ag is in the air

Apr 10, 2019 | 8:00 AM

Drones or unmanned aerial vehicles are becoming increasingly popular on the farm.

While it’s a great way to take fun pictures of your family or farm yard or shoot videos, there are many benefits to the agriculture production.

Landview Drones co-founder Markus Weber said usually it’s in the second year when farmers get serious about using drones for agricultural applications.

Weber was in Melfort recently for an ag drone school where 14 participants learned about the uses of the technology for agriculture and how to go about using the data.

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Weber said there has been a surge in the number of drones purchased for agriculture. He said 25 to 30 per cent of farms now have drones.

“A big part of them, unfortunately, don`t know how to go from using it for pictures to using it for mapping. That, to me, is a monumental shift in how they use it on their farm because now they’re able to use it for a data source as opposed to information,” Weber said. “A lot of farmers are using them for crop scouting and for checking cattle. Those are the two that happen naturally. They don’t need any instruction on how to fly the drone. They just do it.”

Weber said the two-day school covers three main areas starting with safety.

“We teach them how to fly and we teach them how to do that safely. The second thing we teach them is how to fly legally. The new rules that take effect June 1, what they have to do to fly legally and everything to be Transport Canada compliant. And the last thing we teach them is how to make money with these things,” Weber said.

Instruction covers how to map and most importantly the work flow of controlling the drone, collecting the right type of data and turning it into a map and how to interpret it.

Multi spectral cameras can be flown over a field and get indicators of crop health, crop stress, plant counts and weed density which can be used to measure adverse events like hail or spray drift. Livestock can be monitored at night using a spotlight.

“I wouldn’t have thought that was possible a year ago, so all kinds of opportunities in part enabled by the legislation,” Weber said. “Today I wouldn`t be able to fly commercially at night. As of June 1 anyone holding a basic certificate can do that.”

Weber likes the new legislation. He said it was created to control the use of drones near airports which, for the most part, does not affect most farmers. Regulations state you cannot fly a drone within three nautical miles of an airport starting June 1.

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alice.mcfarlane@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @AliceMcF