16 The Business of Prairie Agriculture Better Farming | July/August 2024 DRONES: A NEW PERSPECTIVE $5,000 and $20,000, and drones with application capabilities cost around $40,000. As this investment may not be reasonable for the purposes of seeding cover crops and pasture on a single farm, there are companies that offer custom drone seeding services. Spraying Spraying and application by drone is the source of much of the UAV excitement in agriculture. Currently, no products covered under the Pest Control Products Act are approved for application by drone in Canada. Farmers are eager for regulations to catch up, recognizing the potential labour and cost savings of spraying with UAV technology. “The hardware is more affordable than a ground sprayer,” says Weber. “If producers spend $40,000 for the drone, plus $20,000 for a trailer and tank to go with it, that’s a total investment of $60,000 for a farm of around 2,000 acres. A ground sprayer would be way more.” Wolf says that increasing input costs might increase interest in drones. “A lot of things have to fall into place for these technologies to be really usable. What we were waiting for was agronomic reasons,” says Wolf. “When spot-spray technology started, Round Up was $30 per acre and then it plummeted to five dollars. Why would you spot-spray something so cheap? I think herbicide resistance is an issue that’s changing all that. “The ability to kill weeds with a tank mix is gone and now that’s making herbicide expensive. Now spot- spraying makes sense. If a spray drone costs $35,000 – that’s affordable to work with. I can spot-spray my low spots or I can go back to the field where rain came before I finished spraying. That’s what people are thinking right now, and drones do make sense for that.” Weber says there are also convenience factors that interest farmers. “You can get spraying at times when you could not be spraying with a ground sprayer,” says Weber. “In regions with a lot of rain, drone spraying doesn’t require soil contact and you don’t need to wait for the ground to dry. “You are also not trampling crop when applying a desiccant, fungicide, or insecticide. Usually, two to three per cent of a field will be trampled by sprayer tracks.” He has seen the most interest in drone spraying from the older generations of farmers. “I’ve noticed the older farmers tend to see more value in drones. People assume drones are for young people, but the older generation tends to drive adoption. “Keeping costs down is a big motivation for drone use. They are a lowcost investment and that’s why older farmers see the value in them.” Regulations and barriers While many producers are currently realizing the benefits of drones, there are still regulations and barriers that limit their utility. Transport Canada has three size categories for drones. The smallest size, less than 250 g, does not require a special licence. These may have cameras that can be used recreationally or for scouting. The next size category is 250 g to 25 kg. Drones in this category require a basic licence, which can be obtained from a self-taught course and online testing. Drones greater than 25 kg, which includes most spray drones, require an Ava Moller, a precision agriculture intern for LandView Drones from Lakeland College, flies a Matrice 350 drone. Bianca Weber photo
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