SPRAYING WITH UAVS NO LONGER A FUTURISTIC DREAM
THIS ARTICLE WAS ORGINALLY POSTED ON REALAGRICULTURE.COM. READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE.
The day when unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are used for spraying fields in North America could be here sooner than we expect. In fact, for small acres, that day may have already arrived.
Several spraying units made by a Swift Current-based RotorSpray attracted plenty of attention at Farm Forum in Saskatoon earlier this month.
The UAVs were built and designed by Monty Allan, an entrepreneur with farm roots in southwest Saskatchewan. Through his company Chaos Choppers, Allan has been providing UAVs to RCMP and law enforcement agencies for surveillance and aerial photography. As part of the interview posted above, he says RotorSpray was formed after seeing the opportunities for UAVs in spraying.
While UAVs are already used in Japan for spraying small fields, RotorSpray’s current technology is well-suited for controlling mosquito populations and spot-spraying weeds in areas on North American farms that are inaccessible for large field sprayers, explains Allan.
“Maybe your field V’s out and you can’t get your sprayer in there, it works pretty good for that, as well as hollows that are too wet to get into,” he says. “This year we had some issues with Canada thistle. (The patches) were really not very big, so it’s not worth spraying the whole field. This can go in and do it in a few seconds.”
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