Agriculture Technology Podcast · RDO Equipment Co.

Ep. 215 - Innovating Agriculture with UAV Drone Technology

·22 min·1 clip

Ross Florog says a 2021 NDSU blackbird test led him to buy a drone for his own farm.

1. Agriculture Technology Podcast Ep. 215 focuses on UAV drone technology for agricultural application. 2. Tony Kramer hosts, and Ross Florog joins as an agriculture technology and equipment expert who runs spray drones in southeast central North Dakota. 3. The episode asks where UAVs fit in ag spraying, what they do well, and where they still fall short. 4. Ross says an NDSU research team brought a small spring drone in 2021 for blackbird deterrent tests in sunflowers. 5. He and a buddy bought a drone after that project and began commercial work in 2022. 6. The original plan used a Phantom 4 RTK with a multi-spec camera to grid fields and build prescription maps with PIX40s Ag software. 7. Ross says the team could then load a jump drive into the controller and send a 30-liter sprayer to hit mapped spots autonomously. 8. He says that workflow proved too expensive and too time-consuming for farmers. 9. Ross says the DJI Agras T-Series cameras were good enough that they often scouted by eye from the air instead of processing imagery. 10. He says the controller works like a Google Earth map, letting them draw spray boundaries with their fingers. 11. Ross says they filed FAA paperwork for a swarming exemption before approvals existed. 12. He says the exemption request delayed the rest of the paperwork, so they removed it. 13. Ross says the business ran a 130-liter unit in 2022 and added a couple of 40-liter units in 2023. 14. He says this year they shifted to an XAG P100 Pro because it flies faster and follows terrain better. 15. Ross says the nozzle change from T-Jet to rotary nozzles lets them adjust atomization and droplet size from the ground in real time. 16. He says the 30-liter drone sprayed about 17 to 18 feet per second, the 40-liter unit reached 30 to 32 feet per second at a two-gallon rate, and the XAG reaches about 45 feet per second. 17. Ross says dry application has come up too, including spreader attachments for fertilizer and inquiries about interseeding or dry mix in silage corn. 18. He says most work has been pasture spraying for spurge, thistle, and wormwood, but this year wet conditions pushed the crew into corn, soybeans, fava beans, wheat, fungicide, insecticide, and desiccation jobs. 19. The tone is practical and technical, with Tony Kramer pressing for specifics and Ross answering with equipment, rates, and field examples. 20. Listeners who work in ag spraying, farm logistics, or drone services will get the most from it, while people wanting high-level drone hype or pure consumer tech may skip it.

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