Biden signed FY25 NDAA into law which required an unspecified US agency to audit DJI, guaranteeing the subsequent addition to the FCC's covered list since no US agency in its right mind is going to go on record to vouch that a foreign company's products are safe to use - it's all downside for them with no upside whatsoever.
The next admin will unban DJI with the same near zero probability they're going to allow Chinese EV imports.
Auditing doesn't mean banning. That happened during the Trump administration probably because people making the decision were invested in US competitors to DJI.
Of all the things that a farmer could spread on a field with a drone, seeds would not be my first guess. Seeding of many crops is called "drilling" because of the need to actually insert the seed into the soil... something a drone cannot do. This is why you rarely see crop dusting airplanes spreading seeds.
A drone would be perfect for spreading fertalizers and pesticides. 200lb isnt nearly as much as a proper cropduster but running a drone has to be far cheaper than hiring a cropduster. But a chemical-spraying quadcopter isnt exactly the poster child for new tech.
Broadcast minimizes soil compaction, but the article argues that using a drone can achieve a very uniform distribution of the seeds over area, which would be hard to achieve by broadcast.
Some crops seed very nicely by being broadcast, and most forages are seeded that way. Small seed crops like canola and grasses are perfect for broadcasting, and I've seen some excellent crops that were broadcast.
Fertilizer is a poor candidate for drones, because even an Agra 100 could barely lift an acre's worth of fertilizer, since you'll often seen upwards of 200lbs/ac applied each year.
Fertilizer and pesticides could be deployed depending on the need (plant-health monitoring from above) which reduces the need of blanketed deployment. its already the standard for some more expensive smart tractor attachents, but it comes naturally for a drone.
They are good for fertiliser when you have areas to small for aircraft or too difficult for a tractor, which is not often but common enough for them to be useful.
As a layman: It cannot be the case that most plant seeds need to be drilled because so many of their natural distribution techniques wouldn't be effective.
And this isn't corn seed - it's seed cast into still growing (but nearly ready) corn to establish nitrogen fixing legumes / radishes to bind the ground prior to the corn harvest and get an early start on the rotation.
> A drone would be perfect for spreading fertalizers and pesticides.
They tend to weigh too much and uneven spreading will burn/destroy crops.
> 200lb isnt nearly as much as a proper cropduster but running a drone has to be far cheaper than hiring a cropduster.
So many farms have gone to central pivots. Those that have don't (usually) need the drones for either fertilizers or pesticides, they can feed those directly through the pivot and get a nice even coating across the entire crop. I think that more than anything is what's killed off the crop duster industry. It used to be a lot more common to see in them in my youth. I don't think I've seen a crop duster in over 20 years now. I had family friends who flew them.
Crop dusters and overland sprayers are an essential part of dry-land farming. Anything that's not a pivot really. You can't install pivots on every piece of land. There is a lot that goes into installing one and sometimes the pros do not outweigh the cons. They're prohibitively expensive for ALOT of people. They also cant account for irregular shaped fields. A ditch and some irrigation tubes go a long way for row crops.
Many cover crops have very small seeds that need little to no planting depth, even optimally. Growing crops requires much higher success ratio for an individual seed compared to a cover crop. You don't need to care when its a cover crop.
Fertilizers can require hundreds of pounds of application per acre or have special application requirements that must be done from the ground (nitrogen/ammonia)
I mean, they are also using them for spraying. In my very small hometown in Montana they're being used by the local ditchriders(exactly what it sounds like, they "patrol" the ditches and canals making sure they're in order and adjusting flow as needed) to seasonally spray the ditch banks, much more effective than a 4-wheeler and/or spraying by hand.
That is the ideal case. The plants need some time to germinate and sprout. They don't need sunlight at all until they are above ground. Ideally you want something growing anytime it is above freezing, so you want to plant the next crop while the cover is still growing. Of course ideal is rarely possible.
It can also mean autonomous winged platforms and autonomous wheeled platforms - all three forms (wheels, wings, blades) are used here in our wheat / grain belt.
The next admin will unban DJI with the same near zero probability they're going to allow Chinese EV imports.
A drone would be perfect for spreading fertalizers and pesticides. 200lb isnt nearly as much as a proper cropduster but running a drone has to be far cheaper than hiring a cropduster. But a chemical-spraying quadcopter isnt exactly the poster child for new tech.
Fertilizer is a poor candidate for drones, because even an Agra 100 could barely lift an acre's worth of fertilizer, since you'll often seen upwards of 200lbs/ac applied each year.
Fertilizer and pesticides could be deployed depending on the need (plant-health monitoring from above) which reduces the need of blanketed deployment. its already the standard for some more expensive smart tractor attachents, but it comes naturally for a drone.
Wild corn was a very different plant.
They tend to weigh too much and uneven spreading will burn/destroy crops.
> 200lb isnt nearly as much as a proper cropduster but running a drone has to be far cheaper than hiring a cropduster.
So many farms have gone to central pivots. Those that have don't (usually) need the drones for either fertilizers or pesticides, they can feed those directly through the pivot and get a nice even coating across the entire crop. I think that more than anything is what's killed off the crop duster industry. It used to be a lot more common to see in them in my youth. I don't think I've seen a crop duster in over 20 years now. I had family friends who flew them.
Fertilizers can require hundreds of pounds of application per acre or have special application requirements that must be done from the ground (nitrogen/ammonia)