Eye in the sky Drones help scout fields, saving time and giving a different perspective. By Vicky Boyd Editor
T
imothy Gertson readily admits that flying a drone is cool. But the producer of row crops near Lissie, Texas, is quick to point out that his unmanned aerial vehicle, or UAV as a drone is sometimes called, saved him countless hours this season scouting levees as he watered rice fields. “It would take me two to 2 ½ hours to scout everything that a drone might take a few minutes to scout,” he says. “A lot of times, I didn’t need to do anything but it identified places I might need to go. It saved a ton of time early in the season because some of our fields were new and I’d never watered them before.” Gertson even used his drone to survey an organic corn field damaged by feral hogs to obtain a more accurate estimate of the seed needed to replant. Scott Savage, who grew up flying model airplanes and even has a private pilot’s license, jumped at a chance to get a drone about two years ago. “We got one just for fun,” says Savage, who is part of the family-owned Triangle Rice Farms in Bay City, Texas. As a pilot, Savage used to fly his fields weekly, looking for problems from the airplane. That got him thinking about using his drone to scout rice fields. “The drone was much easier and quicker and definitely more cost effective,” he says. Gertson and Savage are not alone in their interest in drones for farm use, says Louis Wasson, a senior Extension associate with Mississippi State University in Starkville. The recent publication of the Federal Aviation Administrations’ drone rule has propelled Unmanned Aerial Systems—as the entire packages of drones, cameras, sensors and software are known—and several software manufacturers are racing to put products on the market, he says. Drone popularity takes off Producers such as Gertson and Savage use drones simply to “point and see.” More advanced systems involve using drones to take images with special NDVI or RGB cameras that detect differences in light waves reflected by vegetation. The industry isn’t at the point yet where those images can readily be processed into a format that tractors can use. But Wasson says several companies now have cloud-based image processing. After you’ve completed your flight, you submit the imagery over the Internet and within hours or overnight, you have a multitude of products derived from the imagery. By the 2017 growing season, he says there will likely be several comTwitter: @RiceFarming
panies offering infield image processing. No Internet — it’s all done on a laptop or iPad. “The drone is the easy part. The flying is the easy part,” Wasson says. “Easily getting that data into information, we’re not quite there yet. Farmers don’t care about the pretty picture – they want information.”
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The drone is the easy part. The flying is the easy part. Easily getting that data into information, we’re not quite there yet.
Getting started Gertson did his homework before he bought his drone in October 2015. His brother-in-law had bought a 3DR drone made by 3D Robotics about four to six months before. The unit, designed to work with a separate GoPRO video camera, took about 20 minutes to assemble each time it was flown. Gertson says he ended up buying a unit from DJI for about $1,200 that included a built-in video camera. DJI has since come out with models costing as little as $500. What also sold him on the DJI was its Light Bridge Technology, which allows users to stream 720 pixel video from 1.2 miles away. Image feeds from some other drones may cut out if they’re farther away than several hundred feet. Although the built-in camera can shoot higher resolution video, transmitting it can be choppy because of the larger image size. Gertson opted for the lower-resolution 720p stream, which he says is fine for viewing in the field. At the same time, the drone saves a higher-resolution version to an internal SD card for later viewing. Gertson also chose a package that included a hard carrying case where he can store his drone with the blades still attached. Many other cases require the propellers be removed before storage. In addition, he bought two back-up batteries, which are each good for about 20 minutes of flying time when fully charged, as well as a few sets of replacement blades at about $10 per set. The drone’s remote control box, which resembles a video gaming console with mini-joysticks, also needs to be connected to a smartphone — either an iPhone or Android — or a newer iPad with a Lightning connector. (The smart devices are not included RICE FARMING • DECEMBER 2016
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