Agricultural Drones For Sale

About Agricultural Drones

Remote-controlled drones have changed the world in many ways, and their impact on agriculture may prove to be nothing short of revolutionary. Commonly used in China and other East Asian nations to spray crops and map fields, ag drones are growing in popularity in the U.S., India, Europe, and elsewhere around the globe. 

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DJI Agras T40 Agriculture Drone

A zero-emissions electric drone—also known as an “unmanned aerial system” (UAS) or “unmanned aerial vehicle” (UAV)—can benefit farmers, custom applicators, and agronomists in many ways. They can perform various tasks, including advanced crop health and soil analysis, real-time data collection, and the creation of prescription maps for variable-rate application of pesticides and fertilizers.

By reducing inputs and water usage, a drone can slash operating costs and minimize environmental impact. Also, by saving time and labor, a drone may allow a single farmer to tend and monitor more acres, including keeping an eye on livestock.

Spraying & Spreading With A Drone

The DJI Agras T40 ag spray drone costs approximately $20,000 and has an obstacle avoidance (OA) system that uses phased-array radar and binocular visual sensors to detect potential hazards, prevent collisions, and follow the terrain at a certain height above the crop canopy. 

An ag drone like the T40 can autonomously fly a user-tailored coverage pattern over fields, vineyards, and orchards to map the terrain, analyze crop health, apply either broadcast or spot-spraying treatments, or spread fertilizer granules or seeds. The Agras T40 has a 36-foot (11-meter) spray width, or swath, and a 23-ft (7-m) spreading width. 

Using 54-inch (1.4-m), counter-rotating coaxial rotors for 30% extra payload capacity, the large Agras T40 can carry up to 88 pounds (40 kilograms) of fungicide, pesticide, or other products or up to 110 lbs (50 kg) of dry granules to spread. The drone can spray up to 52.6 acres (21.3 hectares) of farmland per hour or 9.9 acres (4 hectares) of orchards, and it can spread up to 1.65 tons (1.5 metric tons) of dry fertilizer or seeds per hour. 

Managing Drone Battery Power

When an Agras T40 or other ag drone finishes its route or needs a refill or a fresh battery pack, it automatically returns to land (RTL) at its launch site. Once replenished, the drone will resume mapping, spraying, or spreading where it left off.

With just 6 and 7 minutes of respective spreading and spraying time on a charge, the Agras T40 may require one or more battery pack swaps to cover a whole field. However, DJI also sells a gasoline-powered D12000iE custom inverter generator ($5,000) that can fast-charge a battery in the field in 9 to 12 minutes, keeping downtime to a minimum.

Controlling Ag Drones

The operator can program and direct a drone’s flight with a controller or ground station, which may be based on a commercial tablet or laptop. Better units have a screen bright enough to be viewable in direct sunlight with a brightness rating of 1,000 nits or more. 

Some controllers can coordinate a fleet of drones simultaneously, a feature called “swarm control.” For example, Hylio’s GroundLink Controller can simultaneously control up to four drones. Some drone systems support real-time kinematics (RTK) positioning, which enables centimeter-level accuracy that’s much finer than GPS or global navigation satellite system (GNSS) can provide.

Crop Monitoring & Resource Management

As a logical extension of precision ag technologies, a drone is a multi-tool for crop monitoring, input management, water management, yield prediction, and many other jobs. Using high-resolution cameras, an agricultural drone can create field maps at a higher level of detail than satellite photography can provide. Drones equipped with thermal sensors can detect soil moisture levels and identify areas that need adjusted irrigation. 

Special multispectral cameras—which can see the chlorophyll levels in plant leaves reflected in red edge and near-infrared bands of light invisible to the human eye—can reveal plant stress and general crop health indicators such as those shown in normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) maps. More expensive hyperspectral cameras can more precisely identify diseases, pests, nutrient deficiencies, and other issues. Companies such as John Deere and Precision AI are working to develop autonomous drones that can automatically identify and spot-spray weeds using AI and machine learning.

Spray Drone Benefits & Challenges

Agricultural drone adoption has been rapid in Asian nations, where fields and rice paddies are relatively small and have challenging terrain. To scale up drone spraying to more broad-acre farming needs, as in the American Midwest and Great Plains, larger drones and swarms (multiple drones controlled by the same system) are being developed. That said, traditional sprayers and crop-spraying aircraft are not expected to give up their acres-per-hour productivity advantage in the midsize and large fields of the U.S. and Canadian heartlands.

In drones’ favor, a UAS or UAV system is far less expensive to purchase than a self-propelled sprayer, and it won’t affect crop yields by compacting the soil. Spray drones also have much lower maintenance and fuel costs and don’t require much space in a shed. A flying drone can treat a field too wet for a boom sprayer, and it can cover hard-to-reach areas with ease. Its ability to work autonomously is also a boon. Another is the time a farmer can save by sending out a camera drone instead of walking fields or visually inspecting herds. 

Drones’ use cases are also expanding. In 2019, British startup Biocarbon Engineering developed drones that can fire seed pods into the soil to help replant mangrove trees in depleted coastal forest land in Myanmar. Perhaps someday, drones will play a critical role in reforestation, pollination, and other environmental applications. 

Required Licenses & Exemptions

In the U.S., you’ll need to have a few licenses to operate an ag sprayer drone, such as an Federal Aviation Administration Part 107 drone pilot license, an FAA Part 137 license, and an aerial commercial applicator license from the regulatory body in your state. If your drone weighs more than 55 lbs (25 kg), like the Agras T40 mentioned above, you’ll also need a Part 137 exemption from the FAA. A drone dealer may help you secure all the above. 

Also, be aware of current FAA and EPA regulations regarding drone piloting, herbicide approvals for aerial usage, operating a drone outside of visual range, and other related topics, as requirements can and have changed in response to the growth of the ag drone industry.

Find The Right Agricultural Drone For Sale

Explore TractorHouse.com to find new and used ag spray drones for sale from sellers around the world. Popular manufacturers in the segment include AgEagle, DJI, Guardian, Hylio, Parrot, TTA, XAG, and Yamaha, which is known for its helicopter-style models used extensively in Japan.