Innovating Agriculture with UAV Drone Technology

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Tony Kramer: Hi. I'm Tony Kramer, your host of the Agriculture Technology Podcast, and I'm sitting down with agriculture technology and equipment experts to help you enhance your operation for today, tomorrow, and into the future. In this episode, I talk with Ross Florhaug about using UAVs for application in agriculture. With that, let's dive into it. Like I said, we are going to be talking about something a little unique in the ag sector. Now, I know there's been a lot of buzz around it in the last, let's say, gosh, even probably 10 years around using UAVs in the ag industry. How can we use them? Where can we use them? How can they really benefit the users or the customers that are hiring UAVs for anything?

I'm really excited for this episode because we do have a real-life UAV applicator that we are going to talk to. Ross, thank you very much for joining us on the show today. To get started, let's just hear a little bit about you and your background and how you got to where you are today.

Ross: Well, thanks for having me. I farm here in Southeast Central North Dakota, and NDSU research team was out doing some blackbird deterrent tests on how to keep blackbirds out of the sunflowers. They brought a small spring drone out in 2021. Then they had a product they were trying to spray, get them out of the sunflowers and all. My head starts turning a little bit, and the wheels start going. Called a buddy and said, "Hey, do you want to buy a drone?" He goes, "Well, yes, let's do it."

Initially, we were just going to use it for our own farms, for some spot spraying and that kind of thing. We decided to set ourselves up commercially just in case the neighbors called, and that's how we got started in it. Back in 2022 was our first year with the drone.

Tony: You've had a couple years at it. Before we dive into everything that you do or all of the applications that you offer, let's just dive into the fleet initially.

Ross: When we started, we purchased it's a Phantom 4 RTK with a multi-spec cam on it. Initially our idea was to fly the acres with that. It would grid them out. You would take that data back to your desk or whatever, run it through the Pix4D's ag software. You could basically create your prescription map, where the weed pressures were, or if there was fertilizer deficiencies, that camera could detect quite a few different things. Initially, that was our plan. We would fly it with that, we'd bring it back, we'd create a prescription, take it out onto a jump drive and basically plug that right into the controller, which we had a 30 liter sprayer that first year. It would then autonomously go and spray those spots.

In theory, that was great. We ended up not using the RTK, the Phantom 4 RTK with the multi-spec very often. It was just an extra step in the process, another cost to the farmer. The cameras and things were so darn good on the sprayers themselves. Once we got up in the air and could get a good look at the fields just with our naked eye, we did most of our scouting that way and was able to do things a lot quicker.

Tony: You were using just a basic Phantom 4 in conjunction with the spray drone in order to initially, like you said, hopefully ease some stress or some guessing. Then you found that with your spray drone alone, you were able to go along and do what you needed to do. Now, what are you using for a spray drone?

Ross: Phantom 4 is a pretty basic drone. The camera that was underneath of it was the big piece of that. Just the extra service or the extra job that we would have to do to do the collecting of the imagery would have made it not quite as cost effective for the farmer in the end. Initially our thought process was, how can we conserve chemical waste and just go hit the spots? The cameras on the DJI Agras T-Series drones are very good.

If you have a good eye and you can get up in the air and take a look at things, you can really pick it out pretty well and then we could create a map, just on the fly right from the controllers. It basically pulls up like a Google Earth map and you can plot your points with your fingers right on that thing and draw out what you want it to go spray in your grid and there you go. We did a lot of that just on the fly using common sense and our background in farming ourselves and was able to do a pretty good job a lot quicker for guys.

Tony: I'd imagine it'd make it a lot easier to be able to utilize that one, that T-Series, that DJI Agras T-Series drone to be able to do everything that you need to do. Now, next question I have, Ross, is are you guys just utilizing one of those Agras drones or have you now grown the fleet? Is there any swarm application, or are you just flying one at a time? How does that look?

Ross: That's a good question. When we first submitted our paperwork into the FAA, we applied for a swarming exemption because we could see that coming down the pipe. When we first filed our petitions, it was still pretty early on in the process. They hadn't ever approved one at that point, and it held up our paperwork on everything else. We ended up removing that piece. We don't technically have a swarming exemption to fly multiple drones with one person. We have to have a pilot for each unit if we're going to fly in multiple units.

In '22, we ran just the one 30-liter unit. In '23, we ended up getting a couple 40-liter units. Now this year, we've put the Agras T-Series ones to bed a little bit. We still have them, but we haven't been using them lately. We're using an XAG P100 Pro model. Flies quite a bit faster, and it follows the train a little bit better. It has a 50-liter tank on it.

Tony: That's neat to hear that you guys, you've been doing it long enough. I say long enough, you've been at it for two years, but you've been doing it long enough to find some of the pros and cons about different drones. Now you've moved into the XAG series of drones or manufacture of drones. Other than the speed, what set that next level of drone apart from the initial drones you started using?

Ross: Even from the T30 to the T40, the nozzles changed. We went from a T-jet nozzle, which is a common-use nozzle, to the rotary nozzles, which you could actually change your atomization in your droplet size right from the controller on the ground in real time. If you needed to make that droplet size a little bit more coarse so it gets down and you're not drifting, depending on what you're spraying and when you're spraying, it made it for some more flexibility that way. We really liked the new nozzles.

Then, yes, the speed was a big thing. When you sprayed with that 30-liter unit, you were only doing about 17, 18 feet per second. The jump to the 40-liter unit, you could spray at about 30 to 32 feet per second, and this is at a two-gallon rate. The XAG, you can fly at about 45 feet per second. If you do the math there, you can get a whole lot more done with those bigger drones and the better pumps and the nozzles they have.

Tony: Makes sense if you think about it. It all goes hand-in-hand, larger drones, larger pumps, larger payload. All of that together, I would imagine, gives you the flexibility. Now you said you still have the DJI Agras drones that could be utilized in any fashion or manner, but you've now built that fleet out to be able to pick and choose what you want to do and when you want to do it. With the drones that you have, Ross, do you do any dry application along with the spraying?

Ross: We've gotten some inquiries about that. We do own a spreader attachment for one of the XAG models, and we have our original spreader attachment for that 30-liter unit, but we have never actually used them commercially for anybody. We've tested them out with some fertilizer and just over our own fields. We haven't done it. We did get some inquiries this winter in the off-season guys about using it to interseed a cover rye mix into their silage corn, which I think could be a good thing. There's some guys that are interested in that next year. We're not going to get rid of our spreaders quite yet, but there is some applications out there for it.

I know another guy in the state that's been doing this for a couple of years now, too, that we work with a little bit. Has done some, and guys have been pretty happy with that. It is there and available. As guys become aware of it, I think there'll be more of that as time goes.

Tony: That brings me to my next question, and this will be a two-part question. What types of applications do you offer? What have you done on a day-to-day basis? What crops are you spraying? Where are you spraying, and what is being done with the services you offer?

Ross: That's a good question, too. It's varied a little bit, just depending on the year and what's out there. We tend to do quite a bit of work on pasture ground for spurge, thistle, wormwood, that kind of thing. The river hills and stuff where a lot of the pasture is, up along the James River here, the terrain is a bit rough. It's tough for those guys to get out there with any ground equipment and do any effective job or efficient job. Having us go out there has been a big thing for us. I bet you, 70-75% of the acres that we did a year ago probably came from pasture ground. Now, fast forward to this year, we've been really wet.

For the first half of the season, we did all cropland. We basically just now started on pasture ground. It's been a little bit different. This year, we've sprayed corn, soybeans, fennel beans, wheat. We've sprayed just about everything. Whereas the past couple of years we did some fungicide work, insecticide on sunflowers, some of that folicure on your wheat, and then some desiccation work, this year we've done a little bit of everything.

Tony: I would imagine along with that uniqueness of types of application, I'm sure the size or area of application varies as well. On average, these applications that you are doing, how many acres are you covering generally?

Ross: That all depends really. We do some really small jobs. Last little job we did yesterday was, there's a small town close here that their lagoon had cattails growing in and the state came out and wanted them to take care of the cattails. They got some rodeo out and we went over there. It was only about a 14 acre piece to do. We just took one drone over there and we were in and out of there in less than an hour. Then sometimes we get calls to do big areas. A customer earlier this year, it got too wet and he was busy trying to get some other stuff sprayed. His pinot beans were getting dirty and he had a 630 acre field. We went over there and hammered that out in a day with two drones. It just all depends on what we get called to do.

Tony: I've been involved in agriculture all my life and working with RDO for 14 years, but I always had that mindset of when we talked spray drones, I immediately go to row crop application, the corn, the soybeans, the sunflowers, whatever it may be. After talking to some of you in the industry that are actually doing UAV application, there's so many more roads that you can go down. You talked about wastewater lagoons and being able to take care of stuff there. You talked about the pastures, somewhere where you're likely not going to take a ground sprayer, but you can take this UAV and spray out noxious weeds in a pasture or whatever it may be. I think that's a really unique thing.

Now, my next question, and maybe there hasn't been anything quite super wild yet, but what is the craziest application you've ever done or maybe the most unique inquiry that you didn't have the capability of doing? What are people asking for in terms of UAV application?

Ross: The most interesting one that I got, and it didn't work out, but [chuckles] there was a guy, he called and his daughter was having a reveal party. They wanted to know if I could come by and spray some pink water out of the drones.

Tony: [laughs] I can see that. You see some of the-- I've seen videos of the air tractors, the crop dusters doing gender reveals and other things. Hey, there you go. That's maybe something that you need to add to your list of services is UAV application gender reveals.

Ross: Maybe we could use the spreaders for that. If we can get a powder or something, we can blast it out there. [laughs]

Tony: There you go. That's a possibility. As we were talking through the different methods of applications, some of the things that you have done, why do customers call you as an aerial applicator? Why don't they call the airplane? Why don't they utilize a ground sprayer, whether it be their own or the local co-op? What draws a customer to utilize UAV aerial application?

Ross: It depends. There's a few different reasons. One is just availability. The crop dusters that are in the area, there isn't very many of them. They're pretty darn busy most of the year. I don't think any of those guys are hurting for work to do. They stay busy and sometimes they can't always get to everybody timely. We pick up some of that. The other thing too, on some of the terrain we're dealing with, if there's highline wires, there's trees, there's different obstacles to take into consideration, we can fly a little bit closer to those things, as we're a little safer. We're on the ground, we're not up in the rig ourselves, so it's safer for the pilots as well.

Then also some chemical savings where we're able to more easily map out. Let's say if there's some sloughs out in the middle of the field, where buzzing across, it's hard for him to shut off and turn it back on effectively and efficiently, we can map those areas out and save guys quite a bit on chemical costs. There's more efficiency there. Our biggest hurdle is obviously how much volume we can get out. Early in the season, when that first herbicide pass comes after guys get the crop in the ground. If they're growing XtendFlex soybeans and they need to get some water out with their dicamba or whatever they might be spraying out there, where you need 10, 15 gallons of water, that's going to be a little bit down the road. We're just going to need a lot bigger drone to do that effectively or efficiently.

I don't think we're in any way, shape, or form taking away the need for the big ground rigs anytime soon or the planes for that matter. I think there's plenty of work out there to be done. I can hear the plane going about every time that we're out there spraying ourselves.

Tony: You bring up a really good point there, and it actually leads me into some of the questions I have here to wrap up our conversation. When UAV application became a thing, that was always the concern was you're taking the business away or you're shutting down the business of ground sprayers or crop dusters and airplanes, helicopters, whatever it may be. There's definitely a fit for every one of those methods of application just because of differences.

Now you talked about your limitation of the payload. You can't carry a ton of water. If you did, you would be filling constantly in addition to the payload capacity. What are some of the biggest hurdles that you've ran into? Then what are some of the things that have worked really well for you and your drone spraying business?

Ross: The biggest hurdles was just learning the equipment. As with any new piece of equipment, especially when there's new technology thrown on it, whether it's a tracker, a combine, or a drone, there's days you're going to be scratching your head wondering what the heck is going on and why things aren't working very well. Not all roses every day, but there's been some firmware issues right from the company where the updates would come through, we'd update the drone, and then all of a sudden things would start going haywire. There's been some growing pains with it, too.

One of the big things is just making sure that your ground rig or wherever you're filling from, that you have a pretty good system in place there to make sure that you can fill quickly, you can charge batteries effectively. Generators have been a big point of significance for us. We started with a couple of gas generators and to run those chargers, those DJI chargers each pull 40 amps just to charge the battery. If you put a 10,000, 11,000 watt gas generator on one charger, that's all you get off that one generator. We've moved into a diesel generator that's 200 amps, 48 kilowatts with a 200 gallon diesel tank on it so we can keep generating the power to recharge the batteries.

The other thing, too, is, like I said, things break down. Just because it's new doesn't mean it's going to work perfectly for you. We've learned that we need to have a decent supply of parts on hand. There are dealers in the States that do carry them. Their inventory isn't always great. Sometimes, if you don't have it on hand in fungicide time and the window to spray is today and tomorrow, if you have to wait two weeks for parts, you're going to be in tough shape. We've learned to stockpile some parts here and make sure that if something does happen, we can keep going with it. Then you need a little bit of manpower, too. You need two, three guys sometimes to keep everything moving.

Tony: That's a really good point. Just the basic logistics of all of it. I never thought about the generator and how much power those chargers pull and what they need. I'd imagine, is this set up in the back of a pickup or a box van or what do you guys use to tote all this stuff around?

Ross: We've evolved a bit since the first year. We just had a pickup where we pulled an enclosed trailer behind us that first year. We had about 500 gallons of water storage in there, some pumps and different things, room to store the drones that we'd pull out around the countryside. Last year, we bought a one ton flatbed pickup and pulled the trailer with that, too, and ran that last year pretty hard. Now this year, trading that pickup off and we bought a class seven truck with a 24-foot flatbed. Built a frame on that flatbed and a deck that sits about 14 feet up in the air. We actually sit up there so we can get a good line of sight and be able to see our drones as they're going across the field.

We land them right up on top of that and fill them up. Their generator is bolted to the deck of the truck. It's an all inclusive machine right there. We can get in the truck and go. The drones are on, the generator's there. Everything's all in one spot.

Tony: Sounds like you guys are no different than the helicopter pilots out there landing on top of the tender trucks and doing everything they need to do. It's neat to hear that you guys have adapted and made things more efficient and more fluid to continue being productive and efficient. You also talked about the manpower, having a couple of people. It's not just you out there.

Ross: To be in compliance, you're supposed to have a spotter, essentially. You have one guy that's just in charge of flying the drone, piloting the drone, making sure he's always on task there. Then you have another guy who's a spotter who can then also help with your battery swaps and your filling each time. It works a lot better if there's a couple of guys on scene, that's for sure.

Tony: Absolutely. If anybody wanted to learn more about what you do or just maybe about UAV application in general, anything like that, where can people go? Who can they talk to learn more about this stuff?

Ross: When something breaks on the farm and I'm not quite sure how to fix it, I jump on the internet and I watch a YouTube video and away we go. No, there's all kinds of things out there online. Some of the different dealers that are in the States here. I know Agri Spray Drones out of Missouri and there's Tenacity AG out of Minnesota. They do some side-by-side trials with the different models and really take you through how to use them, what they use them for. You can sit on YouTube for days and watch material on these things.

Tony: Awesome. I just want to thank you again, Ross, for taking the time to sit down and chat with me. Like I said, very excited to have you on the show and talk to an actual pilot that is out there doing UAV application because for the past 10 years, there's been a lot of talk, a lot of discussion about it, but it just seems like it never really went anywhere. Hearing that you are out there doing this, starting it two years ago, two years into it, and you continue to grow and adapt and change based on what the industry is asking for, it's really neat to hear that background. Thanks for doing this and good luck with the rest of your season.

Ross: Hey, I appreciate it. Thanks for having me.

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