Submitted Photo A drone flies over a corn field during a spraying operation by Farmers Choice.

Drones have become another tool in the toolbox of county weed boards looking for ways to get at the noxious weeds around the region.

Last fall for the first time, the Ward County Weed Board hired a company to do a small amount of drone spraying, said Derrill Fick, county weed control officer.

“We needed some spraying down along some telephone pole lines,” he said. “We couldn’t get to it. So then, we had these guys come in with the drone, and that worked out pretty nice.”

This summer, the county hired a helicopter as it usually does to spray coulees, hillsides and hard to reach places in pastures. Afterward, a landowner contacted the county weed board looking for help through a county cost-sharing program to spray a pasture. It didn’t warrant bringing the helicopter back, but the landowner was familiar with Spotters Aerial Ag at Killdeer and enlisted the company’s help.

Coming in with three drones and six staff, the company sprayed 220 acres.

“I hung out there for quite a while, watching them and making sure I understood what they’re doing and how they do it,” Fick said. “This is our first time, but I know there’s other counties around the state that have been doing it for the last two, three years.”

Due to growing interest, the North Dakota Weed Control Association offered presentations on the use of drones during its summer symposium held at Washburn last week.

Fick said remote-controlled drones have a place in weed control because of their ability to cover rough terrain and locations that can’t be reached by a ground sprayer and aren’t suitable for helicopter spraying. It is not just convenience. Operator safety is a factor in deciding to aerial spray versus ground spray on rougher terrain, he said.

Ground spraying is the most efficient method of weed control, although a drone can be useful if conditions are too wet or too complicated for a ground sprayer, said James Gelormino, a drone pilot who runs the custom application division of Farmers Choice, which has offices in Lansford, McClusky and Sidney, Montana.

Farmers Choice uses drones to spray a variety of ag-related chemicals on both pastures and cropland for ag producers and offers biological remediation for damaged soils.

“This year, we’re at about 7,500 acres,” Gelormino said. “A big selling point with using the drones is, with their big spray rigs, they have to physically drive onto their crop, which will take some of their yield and damages the crop. This is low impact. You’re not damaging your crop.”

Drones also work well for oddly shaped fields or fields that have hazards or difficult areas, especially around the border of a field, and can offer precision application, Gelormino said.

His drones can spray about 400 acres a day, or about 40 acres an hour, depending on the lay of the land and type of field.

In addition to county weed boards, water associations, lagoon operators, gravel companies, railroads and oil companies can potentially benefit from drone spraying, Gelormino said. He noted Farmers Choice did mosquito spraying for the city of Bowdon this year.

Fick said drones won’t replace helicopters, which can spray more acres an hour. However, helicopter spraying operators are few, while the number of drone applicators has been rising, he said.

The weed board has looked into purchasing its own drone, and Fick began the licensing process to fly one. The board is reconsidering, though, due to labor requirements that fall on top of an estimated $60,000 investment into a drone and accessories.

“It’d be fine if we would have enough personnel to operate it. But it wasn’t working out that way,” said Fick, who has two seasonal helpers. “Things just weren’t falling into place for us to utilize it efficiently.”

It may be more efficient for the county to hire a contractor when needed as compared to investing in equipment and personnel, he said. Ward County addresses weeds on county road right-of-ways and most township roads as well as certain state roads if contracted for reimbursement by the state. It also cost-shares with landowners.

With diligent noxious weed control efforts, Ward County has reduced its infested acreage from 5,000-6,000 acres to about 1,500 acres a year, Fick said. Leafy spurge, Canada thistle, absinth wormwood are the top three noxious weeds.

Fick sees possible benefits to having a drone for spraying gravel pits, which can be a source of weed spread.

In spraying for weeds, drone applications typically involve a continuous spray of chemicals over an area because extra work and cost are required to program sprayer drones with maps. Ground sprayers and helicopter pilots can see where weeds are located so are able to turn the spray on and off as needed. It’s a disadvantage Fick sees going away as drone technology becomes more refined.

Gelormino flies a multi-spectral drone to take images that can be loaded into software to create a map showing where particular weeds exist. The sprayer drone then is programmed with that information, or farmers can use the mapping to program their ground sprayers, he said.

Josh Dipippo of Spotters Aerial Ag said satellite programs also are beginning to make weed identification easier. There is potential to obtain satellite data from recent years to map weed patches, eliminating the need to fly or walk the area to develop a map, he said.

Even with current technology, though, interest in drone applications is exploding.

“We’ve been trying to expand, but there’s so much work right in my own backyard, it’s kind of keeping us from growing as much as I would like to,” Dipippo said. “We just can’t keep up with the demand.”

America chases China in drone technology

Drone technology has made huge strides over the years, but the greatest gains have been in China. That puts American drone companies in an unfortunate position as the federal government has sought to discourage the use of Chinese technology.

James Gelormino, who operates drones for Farmers Choice, said he wishes he had an American option equivalent to China’s.

“They’re way ahead of the game, specifically when it comes to software. Now, hardware is not a problem. There’s a lot of great American drones. They’re sturdy. They’re great,” he said. “It’s just the software is lacking. It’s the ease of use.”

While the Chinese are increasing the capability of their drones exponentially, American companies are making small improvements, said Josh Dipippo of Spotters Aerial Ag.

“They’re not as reliable. They’re a lot more expensive and their software is not as user friendly,” he said. “It’s frustrating because I would like to buy American as much as anybody but regulation has crushed them in the research and development phase, and now they’re so far behind, I don’t know how they catch up.”

He said educating lawmakers about drone technology could alleviate some of the concern about data collection that surrounds Chinese drones. Drones used in the agriculture industry do not save imagery or other data other than flight logs indicating where the drone sprayed, which is not useful data for the Chinese, Dipippo said.

“There’s nothing that they would be getting from my drone that they couldn’t get with a satellite,” he said.

– Jill Schramm

Submitted Photo
A Spotters Aerial Ag worker prepares to reload drones with herbicide during a recent spraying operation in Ward County.