Farmers use of drones soars to ever greater heights

DRONES are playing a key role in agriculture across the state, whether it is detecting and killing weeds, measuring disease outbreaks or supporting crop-breeding trials.

Minister for Agricultural Industry Development and Fisheries Mark Furner said more producers were benefiting from using drones in their farming operations.

“Applied research is focusing on expanding the use of drones in assessing crop health, breeding lines, pasture growth and horticulture yields, releasing predator mites over certain crops, disease detection, targeting weeds and monitoring water levels in dams and bores in remote areas,” Mr Furner said.

“Many of these activities could previously have taken days of labour-intensive effort, but with drones they can now be accomplished in as little as a few minutes.”

Mr Furner said one example was the Queensland Government’s development of a drone that could fly over sugar cane fields, identify weeds and take them out with a targeted shot of herbicide.

“This saves time, money and helps to reduce herbicide run off into local waterways,” he said.

The Department of Agriculture and Fisheries will be highlighting its innovative use of drones through a display at the upcoming World Of Drones Congress in Brisbane.