By Kacie Timmons
Special to Tiger Media Network
Drones are being utilized in every sector of the economy and increasingly in agriculture. Second, only to construction, agriculture is one of the largest industries that has adopted many new drone technologies. Able to capture monumental amounts of data while using less labor, drones are helping farmers and ranchers increase the efficiency of their operations.
Unmanned aerial vehicles have become very popular in agronomy because of their ability to take pictures and collect data that can be transformed into yield and vegetation maps. This information assists farmers in making decisions on what fertilizers, herbicides, or pesticides to apply. The beef industry has been slower to introduce this technology even though drones have many practical applications on the ranch.
With the ability to create aerial maps of pastures, ranchers have access to information on plant height, plant health, weather damage, and can identify which areas of a pasture are the most heavily grazed. Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) data can help ranchers assess what their forage and grasses are lacking in nutrients to be able to make better management decisions to benefit the nutrition their livestock are receiving.
Another aspect of rangeland management that can benefit from UAV use is controlled burns. Many drones can have a near-infrared camera attached that will detect heat from the fire and make it easier for the flames to be monitored. The drone will allow the fire boss to see through the smoke to see how fast the fire is moving and make sure it stays within its prescribed area.
NIR cameras can also detect body heat from lost cattle or animals hidden in heavy brush and remote areas. In regions where cattle rustling is prominent, ranchers will use NIR technology to be better protected against trespassers and thieves.
An extra set of eyes in the sky can assist in monitoring livestock, fence lines, and water sources. Ranchers can survey pond and water tank levels without having to step foot into the pasture. For feedlot owners, managing yard inventory is a large part of daily operations that requires significant time and labor. Drones can automate the cattle counting process with software that can take one still image and accurately identify the number of animals in a pen in a timely manner without disturbing or adding stress to the cattle. One business that offers this service to producers, lenders, and auditors is Crop Quest.
Producers can more closely monitor cattle health and calving activity with a high-quality camera able to zoom in from a distance and read ear tag numbers. In the future, Dr. John Church at the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology, foresees many ranchers using drones with radio frequency identification (RFID) technology in their herds. Each individual animal could be outfitted with an RFID tag and by inputting that tag number into a drone, it would be able to identify their location and activity. Kevin Kester, a past president of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association even uses his DJI drone to herd his cattle in remote places. The whirring from the propellers doesn’t scare the cattle, just causes them to gently move away from the noise.
One of the main limitations of drones is their short flight time due to battery restrictions as most drones cannot fly for longer than 30 minutes at a time. Wind can also affect UAV flights and the max wind resistance for most drones is 18-24 mph.
The use of a drone for aerial surveillance to improve management decisions is considered commercial use, so therefore the drone will need to be registered with the FAA and the pilot will need to get an FAA Part 107 license by taking an electronic knowledge test at an accredited testing center.
If you are interested in implementing drone technology on your ranch, the biggest question to ask yourself is “What do you want the drone to be able to do?” Knowing this will help you find a cost-efficient drone that can be outfitted with the correct sensors to gather the data you want.
The biggest challenge that drone technology presents producers is the ability to interpret and analyze all the information that is collected. A high-quality agriculture software program can transform all that data into usable facts and figures. There are many brands that offer agriculture packages and software programs including DJI, AgEagle, Precision Hawk, Drone Deploy, and Barger Drone.
While drones cannot take the place of solid animal husbandry, they can still make the daily lives of a rancher simpler and the operations on their ranch more efficient.
Kacie Timmons, a 2018 Smith Center High School graduate, graduated this spring with a Bachelor of Science in agriculture business from Fort Hays State University. She is the daughter of Glenn and Pamela Timmons, Smith Center.