alt Hacker News> 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.
Crop dusters and overland sprayers are an essential part of dry-land farming. Anything that's not a pivot really. You can't install pivots on every piece of land. There is a lot that goes into installing one and sometimes the pros do not outweigh the cons. They're prohibitively expensive for ALOT of people. They also cant account for irregular shaped fields. A ditch and some irrigation tubes go a long way for row crops.