With legislation making drone ownership easier and more affordable, many
farmers are could find a more effective means of crop monitoring and
maintenance.
In the increasingly unstable world of farming, everything from
volatile weather conditions, to pests and disease, to rising operational
costs pose a threat to crops and livestock. Time is of the essence when
it comes to dealing with and eradicating many of these problems before
they spread or worsen.
Many Australian farmers are turning to
agricultural drones as a cost and time effective means of keeping tabs
on their herds and fields — and olive farmers are no different.
The
agricultural drone market might be relatively unheard of, but seeing
that it’s quadrupled in value since 2012, that’s likely to change very
soon. Experts are saying that the market (valued at $673 million in
2015) will exceed $2.9 billion in the next four years.
Technology
once used by the military has found its home in agricultural drones, or
UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles), allowing farmers to better plan their
planting and crop rotation strategies by providing a day-to-day progress
report on their fields and soil, as well as their irrigation and even
any pest infestations.
Using advanced sensors and imaging capabilities to take aerial images,
agricultural drones can provide an early detection with multispectral
imagery that detects signs of sickness in plants that are not visible to
the naked eye.
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