The coming of agridrones - eAgronom’s experiences with agricultural drones

eAgronom has conducted some tests with an agricultural drone XAG P100.

The emergence of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), or drones, in agriculture is already becoming a reality. In a situation, where farmers are obliged by various EU regulations to reduce the use of mineral fertilisers and chemical pesticides, drone technology could be one of the solutions to reach these goals. The use of agridrones has the potential to save on inputs and also increase operational efficiency. What are the advantages and disadvantages of agridrones, and what have we at eAgronom observed while using them - this what this blog post will give an overview of.

What are agridrones used for?

Agridrones have a wide variety of uses. They can be used for field mapping, soil monitoring, livestock movement tracking or animal counting. They can also be used to assess the need of irrigation, fertilisation and crop protection spraying, but also for soil and water sampling, spraying plant protection products (currently not allowed in EU), sowing seeds, fertilisation, etc.

Dispersal of cover crop seeds into the growing crop.

Advantages of using agricultural drones

The use of drones can reduce the time and labour needed for the work, and can also detect problems (e.g. pests, diseases) at an early stage - drone surveillance is more accurate and with higher quality than satellite imagery and data collection. 

The use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) can also help to improve the health and safety of workers, as they can be located further away from the work site and therefore have less exposure to chemicals. The use of drones also reduces the negative impact on the environment, as fewer and more precise inputs are used.

Disadvantages of using agricultural drones

The disadvantage of drones is that they have a small carrying capacity, but their size makes them effective in areas that are difficult to access, such as mountains and confined areas. Also, satellite surveillance capabilities are sufficiently advanced to meet the needs of many farmers today - for drones it is difficult to compete with this. Drones are still relatively expensive and their battery life is not very long. The quality and efficiency of agridrones are also affected by obstacles in the field, such as electric poles and trees. Other drawbacks include the need to fill in additional paperwork. In particular, in order to fly large drones, it is necessary to undergo special training and to apply for a pilot's licence. When applying for a permit to fly, the distance from airports must be taken into account and therefore they may not be usable at all in certain areas. 

A plant protection spray and an agrodrone.

Different companies that make agricultural drones

There are a number of agridrone producers on the market today, including Nando Droid, DJI Agrodrone, DroneAg, ABZ Innovations, A.Drones, Titan Machinery, etc. In addition to the hardware, several manufacturers also offer their own software, but there are also independent software providers that have created additional capabilities for their use - for example, Skippy Scout, which can be used to automate field monitoring that is conducted by a drone.

The future of agridrones

The market for agricultural drones is still developing and is forecasted to grow significantly. By 2032, the agridrone market is forecast to be worth $11 billion, more than five times larger than in 2023. The share of hardware, software and services is expected to grow relatively equally and linearly.

Forecasted growth of the global agricultural drone market. Source: market.us 

The future prospects for agridrones are currently somewhat limited as the legislation does not favour their use - for example, in the EU, spraying pesticides from aircraft is prohibited (except in Bulgaria). 

eAgronom's experience with agridrones

We at eAgronom have also experimented with an agridrone. On our demo farm trial fields, we tested sowing with XAG P100, one of the largest agricultural drones on the European market. This machine has a total weight of 32 kg, a working width of 5 to 10 metres and a flight height of 1 to 30 metres. The machine has a maximum spraying capacity of 10 l/min and a maximum carrying capacity of 40 kg of liquids and 60 litres of seed. The XAG P100 is equipped with 2 lithium batteries with a capacity of 18 000 mAh.

The use of agridrones requires preparation. It is also necessary to change the batteries and refill the tank while working it.

We tested the agridrone to sow cover crops, winter oilseed rape and winter wheat. For the cover crops, we used a mixture of white mustard, phacelia and tillage radish, that were sown at 10 kg/ha. Sowing was carried out in pre-harvest dormant winter wheat on 1st of August. On average, it took 5 minutes to sow one hectare. The result was about 3.2 tons of dry matter biomass per hectare, which was lower than the 4.4 t/ha dry matter biomass achieved with direct drilling (see our blog post on this here).

In addition, we also drilled winter rape 'Trinity' at 3 kg/ha and winter wheat 'Juliet' at 140 kg/ha. The wheat field plot was cultivated after sowing. Both crops germinated, but the exact results will only be known in 2024 - in the spring we will see how the plants have survived the winter and in the summer we will know the yield.

A heart-shaped oilseed rape field that was sowed with an agricultural drone. Results were influenced by uneven emergence and whose strong winds.

At eAgronom’s demo farm, we plan to continue testing agridrones for  cover cropping as well as for fertilisation and field mapping and monitoring. If in the future drone spraying of crop protection products is allowed, we will definitely test spot spraying.

Watch also a video about our drone testing!