Mississippi State Conducting Study of UAVs While Delta “Pilots” Find More Uses
Crop dusters have filled the Delta skyline for generations as former war-time pilots found a niche job when they got back to civilian life. The technology has increased ten fold throughout the years, as turbine engines and digital mapping have climbed aboard.
But a new “pilot” of sorts has been on the scene for quite some time. Drones or Unmanned Aerial Vehicles have been used for photography purposes and have increased their usage in helping adapt and create better maps and more. Riggs Ware works with Wade Incorporated as a Content Creator and the John Deere Tech Program graduate and mechanic has found that drones are a great tool to help him get the job done.
“I just started taking pictures and one thing led to another,” says Ware. “And that’s what I mainly do right now for the company.”
Ware initially started his own company, River Bend Drone Company with a $2,500 drone and his work drew the attention of filmmaker Jamie Matthews in Greenville. Ware eventually moved into a higher-end drone – a DGI Inspire 2.
“That drone is the higher end type of drone used for Netflix documentaries,” he says. “It takes a lot to put together and I needed something a little bit easier so I moved to the Mavic 3 Pro. Now I can sit in my truck, throw that drone out and it will be flying in ten seconds. It’s a whole lot better.”
Ware obtained his FAA 107 license and continues to make produce content for Delta area Wade Inc dealerships and for John Deere’s national office.
“John Deere has used my drone photography in some of their trade shows,” he says. “I shoot pretty much anything agriculture related. With Wade Incorporated, while I am shooting our customers across the state, it has definitely opened my eyes to the uniqueness of are area. We have a thriving timber industry, there’s the chickens and hog farms, the cows, the sweet potatoes and peanuts. Cotton is probably my top favorite crop to shoot. Just seeing those fields of white really gives me an opportunity.”
One area where drones are being used more and more in is spot spraying. With Delta row crops being so large, it doesn’t make sense for drones to even think about taking the place of crop dusters, but can be used in addition to the turbine planes in those “hard to get to areas.”
Eric Brozovich and Barrett Daugherty started their Delta 19 Land Company to initially work a land deal. When that fell through they turned their initiative towards drone work. Their day jobs in ag related companies allowed them to see the future of drones coming to the industry.
“We are blessed to have a couple of young, local agriculture guys who are excited about this service,” says Brozovich. “We currently have two drones and two pilots.”
Navigating the UAV world with the FAA, EPA, and other government entities requires plenty of paperwork and licenses.
“You have to get your Part 107, which is commercial drone license, every two years and then your Mississippi applicator license every year,” he says. “We have the Part 137, Part 44087 and also a General Standards License. And then you must have an Agricultural Plant or whatever application type your specializing in. We have an Aquatic License through Mississippi and an Agricultural Plant License.”
That allows them to help farmers spray in tight, hard-to-reach spots that regular ag pilots can’t access. Many times, the fields are too wet for the farmers to maneuver their spray rigs across them.
“It’s a specialty,” says Brozovich. “Specific small areas that planes can’t get to or undesirable areas that are difficult-to-spray type situations.”
Working across the state, the company sends their pilots out to not only farms but to many hunting sites.
“There are many different uses for drone technology such as wildlife food plots or duck holes,” he says. “The drone has a spreader on it, too, so we can spread duck hole millet and other seed or fertilizer.”
Brozovich understands his business is a complement to the ag pilot and isn’t looking to interfere with everyday crop duster work. He continually works with ag pilots
One use for UAVs is the aquaculture realm to spray ponds and other water areas. And they continually look for ways to stretch their drone’s capabilities.
“My brother owns Wilmer Painting and they are often called to pressure wash homes and commercial buildings. So, we built a pressure washer attachment for the drones and you can soft wash a building with it.” he says.
At Mississippi State University, researchers are keeping an eye on UAVs. The ag school has the largest U.S. manufactured ag drone fleet in the country. Associate Director of Research at the MSU Agricultural Autonomy Institute, Madison Dixon, has been busy expanding and documenting the use of drones.
“With this fleet, we will be performing research flights, testing numerous variables and aiming to provide valuable data and insights to farmers,” Dixon said at a December presentation at the MSU Extension Row Crop Short Course. “We will test application efficacy of both liquid and dry agricultural products and will find ways to mitigate off-target drift.”
Today’s drones can be equipped with tanks and nozzles to spray crops with water-based solutions, as well as hoppers and spreaders for dispersing dry material. To date, applications include cover crop seeding, weed, insect, and disease control and crop imaging when combined with cameras and sensors.
The UAV research only uses U.S.-made spray drones due to certain foreign manufactured drones at risk of being grounded due to cyber security vulnerabilities.
“One of the things we’re doing is validating aircraft specifications and real-world operational performance,” says Dixon. “If the drone is advertised to fly for twenty minutes per flight, but it only flies for ten minutes in moderate wind conditions, that is a huge difference. So, we’re testing to determine how they truly perform in real-world use.”
MSU currently is working with a Hylio AG-272 UAS which has an eighteen gallon payload capacity and weighs up to 400 pounds at takeoff. The Federal Aviation Administration has approved even larger unmanned aircrafts with some weighing over 1,100 pounds.
“There is an urgent need for UAS applicator training and certification, as well as low-altitude airspace de-confliction,” says Dixon. “We have to make sure these spray drones do not end up in the same locations and altitudes at the same time as our traditional ag aviators.”
MSU is not the only university addressing the need for research and support of UAS in agriculture. Steve Li from Auburn University presented data at the Row Crop Short Course on his field evaluations of spray drones.
“Be aware of the labor requirement and how tedious and hot it is,” says Li. “It takes a lot of time to fold and unfold these UAVs for use, and we found we are doing tank refills and swapping batteries every five minutes. It is physically challenging to do this is the summertime in a field.”
Li has been looking at pre-planting burn-down of weeds with a drone and found they can perform this task very well.
“If you map well, you can do a very good job with very clean, sharp edges,” he says.
Daniel Martin of the U.S. Department of Agriculture called spray drones an emerging technology that offers one more tool for the toolbox.
“About ninety-eight percent of drone use in agriculture to date has applications in remote sensing,” says Martin.
Although they are being studied more for their ability to carry a payload for delivery over a crop, the first challenge is weight. A large UAV may be able to carry twenty-five gallons of liquid.
“Commercial manned aviation holds up to 800 to 1,000 gallons of liquid,” says Martin. “A drone may have ten minutes of battery time, and they fly a twenty to twenty-five foot swath compared to eighty feet for airplanes.”
Martin explains that the UAVs are not intended to take over cropduster loads, but to only assist in small areas or where normal planes can’t go.
“You can use an aircraft to spray the big, broad areas and use a drone for the edges and the dangerous areas,” says Martin. “They can be used on small farms and vineyards.”
Choosing the right nozzle for the application is vital. Studies have shown that coarse spray drifts the least, but finer sprays may be needed for certain applications.
“We’ve looked at where the nozzles were placed on the drone itself and found a lot of variability,” says Martin. “Pattern test your aircraft before use and understand the limitations of the system.”
UAV-application of farm chemicals is new enough that the Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA and most states are currently allowing a drone to apply a product that is labeled for aerial use. Martin says chemical manufacturers are working with the EPA to ensure the labels are appropriate for these applications.
MSU’s drone fleet also supports a larger vision for a future MSU-led UAS aerial application training program.
“Delta State University is training traditional ag pilots, and MSU can really complement that by filling the tremendous need to train UAS applicators,” says Dixon.