Getting an overview is the way of the future
While the data-capturing capacities of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVS) and various satellite technologies have long been appreciated, a practical means of converting this into onfarm yield improvements or cost savings has so far been difficult.
But a meeting between scientists, researchers, designers and farmers yesterday took the first steps towards bridging the gap – allowing the technology to progress from being widely viewed as an interesting toy, albeit one with huge capability and potential for the future.
The event in Edinburgh organised by the SRUC could also mark the first step towards “putting a kilt” on the technology – and adapting the electronic wizardry, which has so far been developed to suit the huge, flat monoculture fields of the American prairies, to be a better fit for the Scottish landscape and cropping patterns.
Angus farmer Mike Cumming, an early adopter of precision farming and the use of drones, said that while a deal of technological savvy was required to draw useful information from drone and satellite imagery, it currently did little more than confirm what he already knew.
However, he said that the
0 Drone use in farming could be set to take off ability to recognise crop stress caused by disease or a deficiency of nutrients or water before they could be recognised by conventional monitoring methods would mark an important breakthrough.
The “win-win” economic and environmental benefits gained from being able to carefully target both pesticides and fertilisers to the areas needed rather than the current blanket approach was seen as an area which was likely to gain political backing.
Euan Walker-munro, of Mains of Kinnettles, Forfar, was also keen to see the technology develop from its current role of “electronic field walking” – despite the fact that the technology allowed him to view over 700 ha in a day.
However, he said that as well as a requirement to develop the technology there was also a number of other factors currently acting to limit its on-farm use, with broadband capability when submitting images for analysis a major issue.
“Using our own broadband it took 14 hours to upload a series of pictures for remote data analysis whereas this could be done in 19 minutes where highspeed broadband is available.”
But with the cost of the high-spec machine used by the Edinburgh University running close to £60,000, cost was another important factor limiting the uptake of the technology.
However, Dr Alasdair Macarthur, a senior researcher at the school of geosciences, said that by deciding what information was important and hence which pieces of equipment were required, a smaller drone costing a tenth of the price could give 80 per cent of the information provided by its more costly big brother.