Working drones are slowly becoming available and practically allowed in EU. They can provide alternative technologies or even disruptive solutions for practical farming. Although the carrying capacity of drone technologies is often criticized, the rapid refilling or payload switching could provide radical efficiency. Our goal was to test that, and see the future possibilities of spraying campaigns, as the regulations will preferably allow that soon in test purposes. We purchased a DJI Agras T-16 drone, and after SORA (Specific Operations Risk Assessment) process, we carried out two precision farming tests with additional fertilizations. The spreading missions were intense, where the 20 l tank was emptied during a 2 min flight, and an instant refill was accomplished. The battery was replaced after about four refills. We managed to spread about 200 kg per hour with our non-optimized tests aiming to spread 100 kg/ha on average. The granules were not gentle for the drone propellers and the drone’s operational performance was near to its limits. Emptying the liquid tank of the same drone will take around 3–4 min, so pesticide spraying with refilling station could provide great possibilities after it is allowed. For the spraying utilization, fitness of international practices need to be evaluated in European context, practical use case experimentations are needed and methodologies for drift risk evaluations are needed.

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Drone Fertilization Experiments and Spraying Outlook in Agriculture

  • Jere Kaivosoja,
  • Ari Ronkainen,
  • Panu Korhonen,
  • Victor Bloch

摘要

Working drones are slowly becoming available and practically allowed in EU. They can provide alternative technologies or even disruptive solutions for practical farming. Although the carrying capacity of drone technologies is often criticized, the rapid refilling or payload switching could provide radical efficiency. Our goal was to test that, and see the future possibilities of spraying campaigns, as the regulations will preferably allow that soon in test purposes. We purchased a DJI Agras T-16 drone, and after SORA (Specific Operations Risk Assessment) process, we carried out two precision farming tests with additional fertilizations. The spreading missions were intense, where the 20 l tank was emptied during a 2 min flight, and an instant refill was accomplished. The battery was replaced after about four refills. We managed to spread about 200 kg per hour with our non-optimized tests aiming to spread 100 kg/ha on average. The granules were not gentle for the drone propellers and the drone’s operational performance was near to its limits. Emptying the liquid tank of the same drone will take around 3–4 min, so pesticide spraying with refilling station could provide great possibilities after it is allowed. For the spraying utilization, fitness of international practices need to be evaluated in European context, practical use case experimentations are needed and methodologies for drift risk evaluations are needed.