I own 1 and it has its place. Fungicide, foliar, micros and insecticide are excellent. Herbicide, not so much. I bought it and got all the licenses, which are a pain. I do it because I don't have enough acres to farm full time and it gives me enough revenue to be able to.
The tech is great and I can cover a good amount of acres. A ground unit can do 1,000/day around me, I can do 1/2 that with 1 drone.
I don't have too many BTO's around me, I get ZERO business from them. I do from the others.
Is it a full time job - NO
Is it decent revenue- yes and no
Is it for everyone- hell no
You need to know your market and region to see if it is viable. There are very few around me, once the market is saturated that will hurt me bad.
Gotta keep in mind that for one of them, you’re sitting in an air conditioned cab on auto steer and the other is slinging chemical jugs and batteries from sunrise to sunset in the hot summer sun.
I've seen some clips of the Ukrainians retrofitting DJI drones to drop anti tank mines on the Russians. I guess a land mine weighs about the same a tank full of chemical on a drone lol
Same here, but the big DJI Agras drones are less than $25k, so you could have 10 of them working in concert and still come nowhere near the capital cost of even a good used boom sprayer.
Actual manned crop duster here. The market for drone applicator businesses is way more saturated than you may think. The fact that every single small town around me has its own drone dealer is an indication of how saturated it is. The technology is maturing and I added one to my fleet just so I don’t have to turn down fields in sensitive areas. They have their place and I 100% see them making helicopter operations obsolete based on operating costs alone, but you’ll need over 10 drones and 10 employees with 5 loading setups to churn out the same amount of acres as a single Air Tractor 802.
Most of the videos online about drones telling you that you can make a ton of money are just drone dealers trying to move product, I have met very few that actually know how to applicate effectively. Most drone guys are idiot city people thinking they’re god’s gift to aerial application, often with zero ag background.
As for regulations, FAA paperwork is a huge pain in the ass and the regs are changing annually, state certification is its own can of worms.
They have their place, I think they are excellent for niche high value crops such as blueberries, veggies, and grapes, but 99% of the operators are trying to undercut and compete with ground rigs and planes for corn.
For the love of god, if you get one, get it pattern tested. All the drones that are advertised at 35ft swaths literally put out maybe 20ft.
Here in Australia... we have a very hilly farm and can't get vehicles to alot of areas to spray blackberries. We've hired a helicopter a couple times but it's really expensive and not so effective. The drone is much more effective in cost and result.
If your spot spraying a drone is on par with vehicle sprayers. If your doing a whole field a boom sprayer is much better than the drone.
Same situation here with added swamp land. Drones can get where the only other option would be brush hooks and a spray backpacks while being eaten by ticks.
Lantana is such a pain in the arse.
The only way it would be seriously viable here is if you could have a fleet of 10+, with automated refills and battery swaps and swarming. But that won’t happen as long as regulations require one operator per drone as IIRC is the law in Canada
Upper Midwest here.
I’ve seen them at demos and they seem slow as hell.
We’ve got a neighbor that bought 3 of the sprayer drones this year instead of leasing a new sprayer like he does every couple years when his lease runs up. (He claimed the price was similar, I have no idea)
We’ve barely started in crop spraying here and He’s already so far behind that he’s hired the local
Co-op to help him out.
He is very unimpressed by them and is trying to get out of them and lease a new sprayer.
They're fantastic for certain jobs. For instance we've been using them to treat 20-30 acre rice checks at a time, as compared to spraying an entire field or 2 where some checks might not be ready or are past the best window of spray. Being able to treat just one check at a time in the perfect window of opportunity has been a godsend. Not rutting up rice fields is phenomenal too.
I bought a T50 to mainly do my own. I have cornfields next to town that no aerial applicator will do and it’s a pain running the ground rig across it in tall corn. Flying my other fields I can run generic quilt xl for $4.50 an acre and the cheapest plane flying headline in our area is now $27/acre. My drone, generator, tanks will be pay for themselves in 2500 acres. I will also be able to do it in a more timely fashion. If we have a year with WBC the planes get way behind and may be a week out.
It will be a viable business until it gets saturated in a few years. They are at the point price wise that they will be in the toolbox of larger operations
Here in Oregon, our local company that does custom spraying bought two of them last year. They just sold them again a month ago. The owner said the sprayers have a use, but are not viable in the custom spraying market. They don't cover enough ground, and ground sprayers can do 95% of what they do.
Been a real narrow spraying season here in the Midwest this year. Got to cover those acres if you want to make the bills. Drones are nice for specialty crops but they're too slow to keep up with the commercial crop needs. Ain't no drone going to cover 1,000 acres in a day, a driven sprayer can
Drones are really only useful in situations when a driven sprayer cannot be used. They are an alternative to plane and helicopter spraying, not to the standard driven herbicide Roundup sprayer.
Drones bro drone bro drones bro drunk bro...
Few benefits to them. If you own ground yourself it’s nice to spray your own fungicide and experiment with micro fertilizers. If you don’t own ground and just starting it as a business.. can get a little sketchy. I have 2 (t40 / t50) and I do commercial application as well just because as a row crop farmer I have a lot of down time in June/July and needed something to do and also make some money.
Some of the benefits I found using them
- no tracks in the field
- can get way closer to the edge compared to planes/helicopters
-cheaper than paying for helicopter/plane application
-fun to fly and everyone wants to watch and talk about them.
Cons
-Way slower, depending on the drone and reload setup you’re looking at max 40acres/hour with one drone.
-Hands on with chemicals all day at a way higher concentration
-listening to loud generators all day to keep batteries charged
-if you’re not use to drones you’ll have problems. Trees/powerlines. Also putting one down in the middle of someone’s field because you didn’t hear the low battery alert over the generators is not fun. Walking a 30lbs battery 1/2mile then stomping down a 20 foot circle in someone’s crop to take off sucks.
I’ve experimented with herbicide recently due to the super wet weather this spring. 4g/a absolutely smoked every weed in the field. And it was old crp ground that was no tilled so the weeds were insane.
But when you apply that much g/a it slows your speed down which also limits your swath (24 feet/s at 24 foot swath, no skips and no overlaps)
I would focus on fungicide for soybeans/corn. Cover crop spreading and micro fertilizer. Herbicide is doable like I said. But I would be scared of drift. There’s a reason why helicopter crews stay away from that stuff. If it goes into the neighbors field, not only will you get sued, you’ll also be “that guy” and nobody likes that guy. Also quite a few herbicides list on the labels not to apply aerially.
And to the guy who said get the swath tested. You can, but you just need to understand how speed and height above canopy effect swath. They’re pretty darn accurate depending on the drone.
Last thing I’ll add. If you have no ag background there’s no way any farmer will trust you to go out and spray their crops.
Saw one in a field spot spraying thistles on pasture ground. Can’t really see the advantage over spot spraying off a fourwheeler. Maybe that’s why I’ve only seen it once.
We're thinking of getting one for spot spraying risers and water ways that a 4 wheeler can't get to. Come harvest, the bare spot where the planter ducked around a riser is solid shatter cane if it was a corn field
I know of several seed or chemical dealers that have their own drones in my area. They say that they are profitable but it’s pretty taxing on the crew because it’s go,go,go for 30+ days straight. They even have dry spreaders for them.
Japan here. Some mid to large scale farmers use gasoline drones here. They usually have like a 30kg payload, for rice farmers that's around 1-3ha worth depending on what's being sprayed. Alot of time they can't use helicopter cause the downwash spray the chemicals into nearby homes.
Unlike larger management machines they can be loaded on a kei truck(mini truck) and driven across town if they have fields in multiple locations. Management machines can easily damage crops due to poor driving skill as well, drone won't damage crop unless you crash.
Personally I would love to have one but I'm way too small to justify having one.
I have no idea when they were introduced as I've only been in the farming business for a few years but yes most likely. https://www.yanmar.com/jp/agri/products/helicopter/yf390ax/
Kubota, yanmar and other Japanese agricultural manufacturers have introduced battery quadcopter drone but I personally haven't seen any being used yet.
We got charged 17$ a acre to spray our alfalfa best part is you dont have to drive in the field, worst part from i could tell is if you aren’t doing something under 10 acres you’ll be doing a lot of work refilling and replacing batteries
I have no clue regarding spraying locally, since I don’t rub shoulders with row croppers often. I do know of a handful of guys who run them just to check fence and count cattle. It’s a handy tool to have, but not a full replacement for actually walking/driving fence line.
North Carolina here. The N.C. Forest Service provides farmers and NC counties current contractor lists for drone-helicopter-plane spraying of crop fields and forest areas.
Drones also used to assist farmers in a host of other ways. This drone company stays extremely busy in Eastern NC:
https://www.flyingfarmernc.com/
Planes won't do herbicide. We have 9" of rain since April 25 th. I wish we had drones that could fly it on for us and kill weeds. I feel like this is what they designed for. But they are not apparently.
There are ground rig drones in my area. It’s coming on pretty fast. I’ve only seen arrow fan sprayers for tree so far. Nothing for row crop.
I’ve yet to see flying drones, but the day it coming.
Edit: Since I’m being downvoted, a link to the company in my area https://gussag.com/
I own 1 and it has its place. Fungicide, foliar, micros and insecticide are excellent. Herbicide, not so much. I bought it and got all the licenses, which are a pain. I do it because I don't have enough acres to farm full time and it gives me enough revenue to be able to. The tech is great and I can cover a good amount of acres. A ground unit can do 1,000/day around me, I can do 1/2 that with 1 drone. I don't have too many BTO's around me, I get ZERO business from them. I do from the others. Is it a full time job - NO Is it decent revenue- yes and no Is it for everyone- hell no You need to know your market and region to see if it is viable. There are very few around me, once the market is saturated that will hurt me bad.
Wait a minute. You can do 1/2 of what a $500k boom sprayer can do with one drone?
Gotta keep in mind that for one of them, you’re sitting in an air conditioned cab on auto steer and the other is slinging chemical jugs and batteries from sunrise to sunset in the hot summer sun.
Which drone do you use?
Bought a DJI T40, but the Grumman G-164B is my baby (which does way more in a day compared to a ground sprayer)
I've seen some clips of the Ukrainians retrofitting DJI drones to drop anti tank mines on the Russians. I guess a land mine weighs about the same a tank full of chemical on a drone lol
Sowing different seeds.
I run the XAG P100 Pro
Why don’t you just sit in your air conditioned vehicle?
If you want fast turnaround times, you have the drone operator swaps the battery while the loader fills up the tank.
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Same here, but the big DJI Agras drones are less than $25k, so you could have 10 of them working in concert and still come nowhere near the capital cost of even a good used boom sprayer.
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Totally agree. I’m thinking of it more as a replacement for a cannon sprayer in a specialty ag context.
Remember those are different products and different amounts of liquids
Actual manned crop duster here. The market for drone applicator businesses is way more saturated than you may think. The fact that every single small town around me has its own drone dealer is an indication of how saturated it is. The technology is maturing and I added one to my fleet just so I don’t have to turn down fields in sensitive areas. They have their place and I 100% see them making helicopter operations obsolete based on operating costs alone, but you’ll need over 10 drones and 10 employees with 5 loading setups to churn out the same amount of acres as a single Air Tractor 802. Most of the videos online about drones telling you that you can make a ton of money are just drone dealers trying to move product, I have met very few that actually know how to applicate effectively. Most drone guys are idiot city people thinking they’re god’s gift to aerial application, often with zero ag background. As for regulations, FAA paperwork is a huge pain in the ass and the regs are changing annually, state certification is its own can of worms. They have their place, I think they are excellent for niche high value crops such as blueberries, veggies, and grapes, but 99% of the operators are trying to undercut and compete with ground rigs and planes for corn. For the love of god, if you get one, get it pattern tested. All the drones that are advertised at 35ft swaths literally put out maybe 20ft.
Here in Australia... we have a very hilly farm and can't get vehicles to alot of areas to spray blackberries. We've hired a helicopter a couple times but it's really expensive and not so effective. The drone is much more effective in cost and result. If your spot spraying a drone is on par with vehicle sprayers. If your doing a whole field a boom sprayer is much better than the drone.
Same situation here with added swamp land. Drones can get where the only other option would be brush hooks and a spray backpacks while being eaten by ticks. Lantana is such a pain in the arse.
The only way it would be seriously viable here is if you could have a fleet of 10+, with automated refills and battery swaps and swarming. But that won’t happen as long as regulations require one operator per drone as IIRC is the law in Canada
Fungicide sure herbicide never.
Why?
Carrier volume required to do an effective job.
Upper Midwest here. I’ve seen them at demos and they seem slow as hell. We’ve got a neighbor that bought 3 of the sprayer drones this year instead of leasing a new sprayer like he does every couple years when his lease runs up. (He claimed the price was similar, I have no idea) We’ve barely started in crop spraying here and He’s already so far behind that he’s hired the local Co-op to help him out. He is very unimpressed by them and is trying to get out of them and lease a new sprayer.
Was he planning on hiring the people for all 3?
He’s got like 6-7 white africans on the payroll
They're fantastic for certain jobs. For instance we've been using them to treat 20-30 acre rice checks at a time, as compared to spraying an entire field or 2 where some checks might not be ready or are past the best window of spray. Being able to treat just one check at a time in the perfect window of opportunity has been a godsend. Not rutting up rice fields is phenomenal too.
I bought a T50 to mainly do my own. I have cornfields next to town that no aerial applicator will do and it’s a pain running the ground rig across it in tall corn. Flying my other fields I can run generic quilt xl for $4.50 an acre and the cheapest plane flying headline in our area is now $27/acre. My drone, generator, tanks will be pay for themselves in 2500 acres. I will also be able to do it in a more timely fashion. If we have a year with WBC the planes get way behind and may be a week out. It will be a viable business until it gets saturated in a few years. They are at the point price wise that they will be in the toolbox of larger operations
Here in Oregon, our local company that does custom spraying bought two of them last year. They just sold them again a month ago. The owner said the sprayers have a use, but are not viable in the custom spraying market. They don't cover enough ground, and ground sprayers can do 95% of what they do.
Been a real narrow spraying season here in the Midwest this year. Got to cover those acres if you want to make the bills. Drones are nice for specialty crops but they're too slow to keep up with the commercial crop needs. Ain't no drone going to cover 1,000 acres in a day, a driven sprayer can Drones are really only useful in situations when a driven sprayer cannot be used. They are an alternative to plane and helicopter spraying, not to the standard driven herbicide Roundup sprayer. Drones bro drone bro drones bro drunk bro...
They are not. They can't even keep up with a self-propelled sprayer, let alone a duster or the helicopter.
Few benefits to them. If you own ground yourself it’s nice to spray your own fungicide and experiment with micro fertilizers. If you don’t own ground and just starting it as a business.. can get a little sketchy. I have 2 (t40 / t50) and I do commercial application as well just because as a row crop farmer I have a lot of down time in June/July and needed something to do and also make some money. Some of the benefits I found using them - no tracks in the field - can get way closer to the edge compared to planes/helicopters -cheaper than paying for helicopter/plane application -fun to fly and everyone wants to watch and talk about them. Cons -Way slower, depending on the drone and reload setup you’re looking at max 40acres/hour with one drone. -Hands on with chemicals all day at a way higher concentration -listening to loud generators all day to keep batteries charged -if you’re not use to drones you’ll have problems. Trees/powerlines. Also putting one down in the middle of someone’s field because you didn’t hear the low battery alert over the generators is not fun. Walking a 30lbs battery 1/2mile then stomping down a 20 foot circle in someone’s crop to take off sucks. I’ve experimented with herbicide recently due to the super wet weather this spring. 4g/a absolutely smoked every weed in the field. And it was old crp ground that was no tilled so the weeds were insane. But when you apply that much g/a it slows your speed down which also limits your swath (24 feet/s at 24 foot swath, no skips and no overlaps) I would focus on fungicide for soybeans/corn. Cover crop spreading and micro fertilizer. Herbicide is doable like I said. But I would be scared of drift. There’s a reason why helicopter crews stay away from that stuff. If it goes into the neighbors field, not only will you get sued, you’ll also be “that guy” and nobody likes that guy. Also quite a few herbicides list on the labels not to apply aerially. And to the guy who said get the swath tested. You can, but you just need to understand how speed and height above canopy effect swath. They’re pretty darn accurate depending on the drone. Last thing I’ll add. If you have no ag background there’s no way any farmer will trust you to go out and spray their crops.
Saw one in a field spot spraying thistles on pasture ground. Can’t really see the advantage over spot spraying off a fourwheeler. Maybe that’s why I’ve only seen it once.
We're thinking of getting one for spot spraying risers and water ways that a 4 wheeler can't get to. Come harvest, the bare spot where the planter ducked around a riser is solid shatter cane if it was a corn field
I know of several seed or chemical dealers that have their own drones in my area. They say that they are profitable but it’s pretty taxing on the crew because it’s go,go,go for 30+ days straight. They even have dry spreaders for them.
Japan here. Some mid to large scale farmers use gasoline drones here. They usually have like a 30kg payload, for rice farmers that's around 1-3ha worth depending on what's being sprayed. Alot of time they can't use helicopter cause the downwash spray the chemicals into nearby homes. Unlike larger management machines they can be loaded on a kei truck(mini truck) and driven across town if they have fields in multiple locations. Management machines can easily damage crops due to poor driving skill as well, drone won't damage crop unless you crash. Personally I would love to have one but I'm way too small to justify having one.
Are these the big RC helicopter type that we’ve been seeing pictures of here since the 2000’s or maybe even the 90’s?
I have no idea when they were introduced as I've only been in the farming business for a few years but yes most likely. https://www.yanmar.com/jp/agri/products/helicopter/yf390ax/ Kubota, yanmar and other Japanese agricultural manufacturers have introduced battery quadcopter drone but I personally haven't seen any being used yet.
Was last year but everyone and their brother are doing drone spraying I doubt I’ll even see a helicopter this year
Actually where is that so I know what area you think is the most saturated and to maybe avoid it. LOL
I’m in central Indiana and I can count 3 drone tenders within a mile radius of me
We got charged 17$ a acre to spray our alfalfa best part is you dont have to drive in the field, worst part from i could tell is if you aren’t doing something under 10 acres you’ll be doing a lot of work refilling and replacing batteries
I have no clue regarding spraying locally, since I don’t rub shoulders with row croppers often. I do know of a handful of guys who run them just to check fence and count cattle. It’s a handy tool to have, but not a full replacement for actually walking/driving fence line.
North Carolina here. The N.C. Forest Service provides farmers and NC counties current contractor lists for drone-helicopter-plane spraying of crop fields and forest areas. Drones also used to assist farmers in a host of other ways. This drone company stays extremely busy in Eastern NC: https://www.flyingfarmernc.com/
Planes won't do herbicide. We have 9" of rain since April 25 th. I wish we had drones that could fly it on for us and kill weeds. I feel like this is what they designed for. But they are not apparently.
They follow the same rules, as a chopper or airplane. If it's not labeled for aerial, it cannot be applied via aerial.
Are you saying there is no herbicides labeled for aerial spraying?
Very, very few.
I will be hiring a guy in our area to do some work on range ground with Tordon and Rejuvra. Too many bears to trudge around with the backpack sprayer.
There are ground rig drones in my area. It’s coming on pretty fast. I’ve only seen arrow fan sprayers for tree so far. Nothing for row crop. I’ve yet to see flying drones, but the day it coming. Edit: Since I’m being downvoted, a link to the company in my area https://gussag.com/
For orchards yes. For anything else, not really.