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Drone technology has come a long way

An agronomist and crop researcher says drone technology has come a long way in less than a decade.

Karl Bobholz is the corn product manager for Renk Seed.  He tells Brownfield that scouting drones are used regularly to monitor plant health on their test plots, and he doesn’t need to wait up to a year to see the data anymore. “We can see a 130 or 160 acre field, and that’s about a thousand images. We can stitch that together to make one mosaic, ortho-mosaic image in about four minutes now on your computer.”

Bobholz says the scout drone data allows producers to map weeds and map areas that need management with fertility or fungicide applications using sub-centimeter RTK accuracy. “You can identify areas in your field for your second pass of herbicide. Maybe you don’t want to spray the whole field. You don’t have to buy an expensive see-and-spray sprayer. You can actually do it with a scouting drone and insert into your operation centers of whatever platform you’re on and execute it with your sprayer.”

Bobholz says growers can make better decisions that impact fields both in-season and long-term by scouting with drones.

Bobholz spoke to Brownfield during the recent Wisconsin Corn-Soy-Pork Expo in Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin.

AUDIO: Karl Bobholz discusses scouting drones with Brownfield’s Larry Lee at Corn-Soy Expo in Wisconsin Dells, WI.