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| Indiana, Ohio use joint drone effort to boost farming yields |
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Indiana, Ohio use joint drone effort to boost farming yields
By DOUG GRAVES
Ohio Correspondent
SPRINGFIELD, Ohio — Uses for aerial drones have ranged from military surveillance to commercial photography. Now a joint state venture between the Ohio/Indiana Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Center in Springfield and The Ohio State University aims to use unmanned aircraft to study farmland.
The drone flights will take place at the Molly Caren Agriculture Center in London, Ohio (home of the Farm Science Review), and the thrust of this effort is aimed at helping farmers boost crop yields. This particular location has 1,400 acres of corn, soybean and wheat fields making it ideal for research.
“The fields are highly instrumented, making it an ideal location to fly and collect data that helps enable the planned precision agriculture research,” said Dick Honneywell, executive director of the Ohio/Indiana UAS Center.
According to Scott Shearer, chair of OSU’s Department of Food, Agricultural and Biological Engineering, the findings will show how farmers might be able to use the craft and their sensors to boost yields, such as what environmental factors will help or hurt crop production.
“Compared to hiring surveyors known as crop scouts, using a drone is a much more effective way to study factors that can greatly affect crops, which includes standing water, pests and the use of fertilizers and pesticides,” he said. “Crop scouts are very talented people, but they’re just not seeing the totality of the field that could be viewed using unmanned aerial systems.”
Shearer said drones are also more cost-effective and can work under cloud cover that obliterates satellite imagery. He explained rules are still being worked out with the Federal Aviation Administration, which in turn is getting input from Congress on how best to use drones safely. Drones are flying in U.S. airspace but under tight control.
He said agriculture is expected to make up the majority of the initial commercial use for unmanned systems once they are allowed in most U.S. airspace, adding that up to 70 percent of drones will eventually be used for commercial agricultural purposes. According to Honneywell, the UAS market is expected to explode into an $82 billion industry with 100,000 new jobs in coming years.
Uses for drones include disaster relief, firefighting, search and rescue, law enforcement and border patrols. Now agriculture research is being added to that list. |
| 12/17/2014 |
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