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Monitoring from above

Vesta farmer hosts drone demonstration for growers

Drone pilot Manny Beaver of New Richmond, Wis., demonstrated the use of the DJI M600 field drone at the John Rohlik farm west of Vesta Wednesday. About a dozen growers were on hand to watch the demonstration.

VESTA — Vesta farmer Matt Rohlik blew the minds of about a dozen growers he is planning to serve with his drone business Wednesday near Vesta.

Rohlik is a salesperson with Taranis, a precision agriculture intelligence platform.

The new technology and the Litchi Flight Program can spot a newly-sprouted weed just emerging in the field of over half-grown crops, Rohlik told his exhibit attendees. It can also count leaves and pods on soybeans.

Rohlik had invited a drone pilot, Manny Beaver from New Richmond, Wisconsin, to demonstrate the use of the Taranis DJI M600 field drone.

“It blew my mind beyond all limitations,” one guest said.

The demonstration drew the interest of other agriculture program developers such as Nick Morrow of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, a product manager with Agrian, another precision agriculture company based in Clovis, California.

While Rohlik shared various aspects of the drone monitoring approach, Beaver was getting his drone ready to fly. The group went outside on the John Rohlik farm to watch the new agriculture tool work.

Beaver went through a preflight inspection, explaining the steps to viewers as he went.

“It connects with 14 satellites,” he said. “You need to calibrate it right, or it will just start swirling around and make it hard to settle it down.”

The drone launched about 12 feet into the air and hovered for a couple of minutes while it synchronized. Then the Lichty Flight Program took over and sent it out into the nearby field to photograph the crops.

It flew at an altitude of 9 meters and at a speed of 35 mph, Rohlik said. The mission took 4 minutes.

The law allows for a 45-meter altitude and 100 mph, but that kind of strain really wears down the battery, Beaver said.

After covering the 360 acres of soybeans, the drone returned to launch site and awaited the uploading of the 320 photos it took.

“The drone averages one photo for every acre,” Rohlik said. “It can box (mark) any plant it doesn’t recognize and can be edited if it mislabels something. That’s how it learns.”

On high-value crops, Rohlik said, the drone can take two photos per acre. It can also do a stand count (count the plants) and/or recognize bugs on the plants, he said.

Back in the classroom of John Rohlik’s garage, Matt Rohlik was able to display the drone’s handiwork on his laptop computer to better illustrate what the drone’s programming was able to do.

“We are working on logarithms on a larger scale,” Rohlik said. “We can separate out data by the date it flew.”

Another field chore the drone can do is monitor mineral deficiency. Rohlik listed a few that the drone could spot, but there was one just beyond its current reach.

“The Holy Grail is nitrogen mapping,” Rohlik said. “Nobody’s been totally successful with it, but we’re working on it. The soybeans show promise, but I don’t think it’s going to happen with corn.”

Such in-depth monitoring was getting harder to come by, Rohlik said.

“It’s not easy to find crop (walkers) these days,” he told his audience. “It’s not easy to find people to pay to walk the field (to monitor).”

That’s where the drone service comes in.

“We’re always asking ourselves, ‘How do we engage our growers and help them make more money?'” Rohlik said.

Showing them exactly where they need more fertilizer at the right time of the year, is one way, he said.

He also said that drone service was available by appointment or on-demand.

Rohlik and Beaver were accompanied by another Taranis traveling salesperson, Josh Breitkreutz of Belview.

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