Agricultural surveys

  What does it actually mean to use drones in agriculture? What for? To what end? How? How much does it cost? 

What for? 

Many field already take advantage of drones, and the pictures and surveys they produce. For example: 

• Field survey: visible and non-visible (NDVI) domain: if you don't want to waste fertilizier.
• Harvest estimates
• Damage survey: Water-ice and animal damages
• Measuring the spread of a specific parasite or pathogen
• Area construction/reconstruction: You want to reconstruct the water drainage of an area or you want to plant grape to a previously untouched field.

What's the result? - Types

The subject of our survey below is a 34 acre corn field located in Mosonmagyaróvár, which we inspected in partnership and guidance of the local University's crop production specialists in space, time and focus. 

RGB - visible light domain survey

Everyone says that this is all too much, "I know my land". However after the survey all of our customers acknowledge that they've never seen their fields in this way before. It's entirely different to see only a small fraction of the land than to see the whole picture from above. If you only see a fraction, you don't see the old river beds, the lines created by different soil composition, the difference in crop height, animal damages, differences in ground height and the real size of inland water. This is all because you don't see the whole area! Using our survey methods you can fly over it, create 2-3D models, like a small bird finding new and exciting details - from a million perspectives. 

NDVI - infrared domain survey

When we take a look into the non-visible world (the infrared picture on the left) we can tell how alive the crop looks (NDVI picture on the right)! It may be green, but it's not working, it's photosynthesizing, therefore living and growing! On the NDVI picture from September the dried out, yellow corn is clearly visible. The north and south trees are green, the yellow corn on the red soil is clearly yellow, but you can see green spots on the central-eastern area which may indicate belated maturing in that area. However, all the different crops shor their true "colors" in different domains. Wheat, corn and barley are all different. Ragweed and second crop are also different. 

During our survey we collect the necessary images for the RGB and NDVI measurments and create the models. 

Upon request we provide one-time or scheduled measurements. 

One-time

With a one-time survey you can see a lot of things already. You can see where you should get a soil sample and where it's unnecessary. You can spot differences in the soil and the abnormalities in crop development. We create georeferated:

• ortophotos in the RGB visible domain. With these you can fly freely over your fields on our computers thanks to the high-definiton photos - under 1,2 cm in average. 
• Height or stage maps (DEM) - with which you can plan water drainage, spot crop height differences (animal damage, spot of water, soil problems, wind damage, lack of nutrients)
• NDVI maps - with which you can see how alive your crops are and estimate crop yield. 
• 3D models - which also allows for exact measurement of animal damage or any other large-scale catastrophe or the area's physical properties.  

Scheduled

With our scheduled inspections you can survery changes of the same area over a period of time. On the first image taken in August you can clearly see the road, the north and south tree-line and the typical brown stripes inside the field. On the picture taken in September you can spot the drying corn, in which the lines are becoming North-oriented just like the picture shot in October. By this time the corn was already cut but the field wasn't plowed yet. 

Complete agronomical survey

For farmers only our complete survey provides real results, when we monitor the area for a certain period of time and we combine these results with other soul measurement data to give a complete review with the help of an agronomist. The result:

• a complete offer
• overview of the application plan
• a precise application plan for the farmer's own computer (USB token)

When pinpointing locations for a soil survey we don't need a "Z" shaped measurement, because we can spot areas with different signs of life. This way we significantly reduce the number of measurement points. Costs less and results in better data. According to our precise application plan we don't throw away fertilizer to areas that don't need it because they are already full with nutrients, instead we put more where it's necessary, where the plants really need it. By international experience this method saves around 20-30% of fertilizer, but the real result is the consistent yield map afterwards. 

How much?

Other constraints:

• Minimum 40 acres
• Fuel accounting based on current normas. 
• Unique offers available based on area and frequency.

How? What?