Drone Spraying

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Here at Aerial Mission, we use some of the latest technology to spray crops using drones. We can cover a wide variety of crop systems and use a multitude of pesticides and fertilizers to promote crop health. We are able to cover acres quickly and efficiently without ever touching the ground and it does not matter how tall the crops are or a 6 inch rain storm the night before. As long as the weather conditions are adequate, we are able to spray.

 

Similar to crop dusters and spray helicopters, we spray at a 2 gallon to the acre rate for almost all of our applications. There are some rare cases where we deviate from that rate. We understand that 2 gallons to the acre sounds incredibly small in comparison to ground sprayers that are usually in the 30 to 60 gallons to the acre range, but there is a huge difference in the way the application is carried out. Ground sprayers use a high pressure system and many hoses to carry the spray liquid the length of the boom while having the pressure consistent enough to make a uniform spray pattern along all of the spray nozzles. In order for this to be achieved, a large amount of spray mix must be used. 

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The drones offer a much different delivery system. From the start, The Agras T40 uses a low pressure system consisting of two low pressure pumps, each coupled with a flow meter. From there, one small hose travels down each of the rear rotor arms in a small hose to meet the spinner disk. The disk is embossed with small groves that aid in the droplet making process. The hose flows across this disk that is spinning rapidly, similar to a dry fertilizer spreader, thus creating the spray mist. The cool part is we are able to change the droplet size literally on the fly by changing the speed of rotation of the disk. Finally the rotor wash or "wind the propellers make" forces the spray mist down and out to create a uniform spray pattern while also forcing the spray droplets through the vegetative canopy, enveloping each and every plant along with the soil.

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• Question: What’s the main advantage with spraying with a drone?

• Answer: Similar to crop dusters, nothing is damaged in the field along with soil condition and crop height simply does not matter; however, the difference lies in the fact that the coverage in comparison to crop dusters is much more uniform and even across the entire field.