Vol. X No. 6
November/December 2016
Serving Soil, Mulch, Compost & Wood Pellet Producers www.SoilandMulchProducerNews.com
NEWS
Attention Readers !
Are you looking for Products, Equipment or Services for your business? If so, please check out these leading companies advertised inside:
Bagging / Wrapping Systems Amadas Industries – pg 22 Hamer-Fischbein – pg 15 PremierTech Chronos – pg 19
blower trucks & hydroseeders Express Blower – pg 11 Finn Corporation – pg 6
Buildings & covers ClearSpan – pg 5
Compost Equipment/spreaders Ecolawn Applicator – pg 12 Farmer Automatic – pg 5 HCL Machine Works – pg 3
load measuring systems Loadscan – pg 10
Mulch Coloring Equipment/ Colorants AgriCoatings – pg 23 Amerimulch – pg 8 BASF / Colorbiotics – pg 2 Milagro – pg 21
Shredders, Grinders, Chippers & Screening Systems Bandit Industries – pg 20 Diamond Z – pg 9 Ecoverse – pg 24 HogZilla – pg 4 Komptech Americas – insert Peterson – pg 13 Premier Tech Chronos – pg 19 Rotochopper Inc – pg17 West Salem Machinery – pg 11
Trommel Brushes
Duff Brush – pg 3 United Rotary Brush Corp – pg 3
TRUCKS & TRAILERS Trinity Trailer – pg 7
wear parts
ArmorHog – pg 12
y k S e h t o t s k o o L Industry With Drones
S
By P.J. Heller
oil, mulch and compost producers may soon be flying high, launching drones with sophisticated software to quickly and cost-effectively measure inventory, map their areas and improve safety. Used by both military and civilians, the latter primarily for aerial photography and videography, drones -- or unmanned aerial vehicles or unmanned aircraft systems -- are increasingly finding their way into commercial usage by surveying, aggregate and mining companies, news organizations, paper manufacturers and emergency responders, among others. “I don’t think there is a better example of changing times than what we’re seeing with drones,” said Federal Aviation Administration administrator Michael Huerta. “They’re being used in so many industries like filmmaking, agriculture, search and rescue operations, inspections of rail tracks and pipelines, and many others. “We are only beginning to see some of the ingenious uses of new and miniaturized technologies developed for drones,” he told an Air Traffic Control Association conference in a keynote speech. Globally, consumer drone sales are expected to quadruple over the next five years, with revenues increasing from $8 billion to more than $12 billion, according to Business Insider. “Growth in the enterprise sector will outpace the consumer sector in both shipments and revenues as regulations open up new use cases in the U.S. and EU, the two biggest potential markets for enterprise drones,” it reports.
The FAA estimates the number of drone operators-for-hire may exceed the nation’s 171,000 private pilots within a year. Drone technology was on display and discussed at the Mulch and Soil Council’s annual meeting in October as the industry explored how it can benefit from its use. Among the conference speakers was Lauren Elmore of Firmatek in San Antonio, Texas, who discussed drone solutions and 3-D mapping for inventory control. “Drone solutions make it easier to collect data, and therefore can help you manage your inventory better,” says Elmore, president and co-owner of Firmatek, which provides stockpile measurement, inventory management and mapping services to a variety of industries. “With drones it’s become so much easier to capture the data and much more cost-effective for clients to capture the data.” Drone technology is also significantly faster for mapping inventory piles, cutting the time from weeks or months to hours, she says. Lewis Graham, president and chief technology officer at GeoCue Group in Madison, Ala., agrees that drones offer substantial benefits to businesses such as mulch and soil manufacturers. “Any industry that stockpiles inventory in uncovered locations is a candidate for dronebased inventory tracking,” he says. “It’s really an enabling technology, something that wasn’t available before,” says Graham, whose company and its subsidiary, AirGon, provide tools for airborne and mobile laser scanning as well as technology for drone Continued on page 3