alt Hacker NewsOf all the things that a farmer could spread on a field with a drone, seeds would not be my first guess. Seeding of many crops is called "drilling" because of the need to actually insert the seed into the soil... something a drone cannot do. This is why you rarely see crop dusting airplanes spreading seeds.
A drone would be perfect for spreading fertalizers and pesticides. 200lb isnt nearly as much as a proper cropduster but running a drone has to be far cheaper than hiring a cropduster. But a chemical-spraying quadcopter isnt exactly the poster child for new tech.
Replies
The article explains why for cover crops this method is suitable and preferable to traditional methods (e.g. it avoids the compaction of the soil).
As a layman: It cannot be the case that most plant seeds need to be drilled because so many of their natural distribution techniques wouldn't be effective.
> A drone would be perfect for spreading fertalizers and pesticides.
They tend to weigh too much and uneven spreading will burn/destroy crops.
> 200lb isnt nearly as much as a proper cropduster but running a drone has to be far cheaper than hiring a cropduster.
So many farms have gone to central pivots. Those that have don't (usually) need the drones for either fertilizers or pesticides, they can feed those directly through the pivot and get a nice even coating across the entire crop. I think that more than anything is what's killed off the crop duster industry. It used to be a lot more common to see in them in my youth. I don't think I've seen a crop duster in over 20 years now. I had family friends who flew them.
This is for cover crops though.
Many cover crops have very small seeds that need little to no planting depth, even optimally. Growing crops requires much higher success ratio for an individual seed compared to a cover crop. You don't need to care when its a cover crop.
Fertilizers can require hundreds of pounds of application per acre or have special application requirements that must be done from the ground (nitrogen/ammonia)
I mean, they are also using them for spraying. In my very small hometown in Montana they're being used by the local ditchriders(exactly what it sounds like, they "patrol" the ditches and canals making sure they're in order and adjusting flow as needed) to seasonally spray the ditch banks, much more effective than a 4-wheeler and/or spraying by hand.
It sounds like some cover crops are seeded before the main crop is harvested to give them more time to grow.
Some crops seed very nicely by being broadcast, and most forages are seeded that way. Small seed crops like canola and grasses are perfect for broadcasting, and I've seen some excellent crops that were broadcast.
Fertilizer is a poor candidate for drones, because even an Agra 100 could barely lift an acre's worth of fertilizer, since you'll often seen upwards of 200lbs/ac applied each year.