In the last few years, drone technology has rapidly made its way into the modern realm of industries, easing crucial tasks effectively that is intricate for humans. These tasks such as mapping and analyzing the entire building in real-time, giving precise data about a whole land or farm and more. In agriculture, drone technology is a phenomenal innovation allowing farmers to increase efficiency in certain aspects of the modern farming process.

Agricultural drones intended to accomplish and advance precision agriculture. It is a farming management concept that seeks to leverage new technologies to boost crop yields and profitability while lowering the levels of traditional inputs needed to grow crops. This farming management concept processes by observing, gauging, and taking action based on real-time crop and land data.

The adoption and deployment of agricultural drones in modern farming have grown recently as the cost of this technology is declining rapidly. It has not only led to the extreme use of drones in agriculture but also has made it a more obvious choice for farming.

Considering industry reports, the global market of agricultural drones is expected to value from US$1.2 billion in 2019 to US$4.8 billion by 2024, growing at a CAGR of 31.4 percent.

Understanding Drone Technology in Agriculture

Agriculturists nowadays have a different number of complex factors that have a large impact on their farms or lands. These factors are water access, climate change, wind, soil quality, the presence of weeds, insects and more. However, by leveraging drone technology, farmers can ease these challenges and enhance crop yields, save time, and make effective land management decisions that can help improve long-term success.

Agricultural drones also enable farmers to gain access to the troves of data that can be used in the farming process which will eventually improve productivity and profitability.

With this heightened use of drones in agriculture, industry experts foresee it will be the next technological wave which can assist agricultural businesses to meet the changing and growing demands of the future.

Use Cases of Agricultural Drones

As the hype of agricultural drones is on the rise, the technology is currently not allowed for most agricultural applications. Despite this, the current uses of this technology continue to evolve as the industry matures with new technology is introduced.

Here are some best of agricultural drones use cases revolutionizing the industry from the bottom.

Mapping & Surveying – Field Analysis

By making use of drones, farmers can easily get useful data regarding the quality of soil, in the beginning, middle, and end of a crop cycle. Drones provide 3D maps of the land that allow agriculturists to address issues surrounding soil quality, nutrient management, or soil dead zones. With the advances in technology, many latest agricultural drone models come equipped with flight planning software to draw around the area farmers want to cover.

Seed Planting

Seed planting using drones is relatively a newer system and not widely in practice. Some players in the industry are experimenting with it in order to plant seeds into prepared soil. DroneSeed is one such company that is using drone able to deliver up to 57 pounds of payload in the form of tree seeds, fertilizer, herbicides, and water per aircraft per flight to help in reforestation and replanting projects.

Spraying

In order to maintain healthy yields, crops typically require consistent fertilization and spraying. Earlier, this process was performed manually which also takes a lot of time and money. But after the approval from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in 2015, drones can now be equipped with large reservoirs that can carry fertilizers, herbicides, or pesticides to spray crops. The Yamaha RMAX is the first such kind of drone weighing over 55 pounds to carry tanks of fertilizers and pesticides for crop spraying.

In addition to these bests of agricultural drones use, it can also be utilized to monitor overall crop and plant health, irrigation management, checking for weeds and spot treating plants, and more.