Agricultural Opportunities

[giumick]

Well if you are in the industry already its a definitely the future. The small near infa red /ndvi unit we have produces some good results but without agricultural quals we cant get into farming. There is not enough payment involved to justify the pay out of a drone operator and agronomist,thus they will be one and the same long term.

 

[Flying Plow Boy]

A few things to consider here:

1. DURATION: The platform used to carry the sensor (s) must be able to cover many acres per mission. For example: The majority of US grain farms operate in terms of 1000's/acre per farm so covering 80 to 100 acre per mission won't cut it. You would need a whole wheel barrow full of batteries to do one job.
2. BIG DATA: Be prepared to handle a lot of it. To make maximum use of the data it needs to be accurately geo-referenced in order to be examined and used. A large % of farms are already using their data layers to make future decisions about their operation in some kind of program like SMS. Stitching 1000's of acres will require significant bandwidth which is typically not very good in rural areas (where farmers live).
3. ANALYTICS: So you ordered your "Ag special" drone from "XYZ drone pro" website. Now all you have to do is put in a lot of missions and crunch the data through your favorite stitching site and you'll be ready to make some big $ right?? Better think twice. There are any number of vendors out there that want to sell you a "hacked" camera who claim they have NDVI. Guess what, most of them do not provide any meaningful data that is useful because it is not repeatable or has been actually truthed. Next time you talk with one of these vendors you might ask for some actual references. Do they really know what they are talking about? When they say "we have large scale farmer clients" were they talking about somebody with a 10 acre vineyard? Farmers or agronomists will soon leave your business if you are not able to provide data that can actually be used to make a profit. Many of these so called "experts" have begun to realize that they had a good idea but they don't have a good business model ... so now they try to make it on the service end by stitching pictures. Are you prepared to stand by your data with your farm clients if you are not able to prove a reasonable return on the recommendations?

These are just some of the biggy's. I haven't even scratched the surface about sensors and precision farming.

 

[Trouhunter]

Apologies for being late to the game on this thread. There are a number of opportunities for NDVI and Drones at the farm field, with the Farmer and/or Agronomist. Even with the local Tractor Dealership to provide services across a number areas. I can say you do need to purchase a purpose built NDVI sensor like those from Sentera. They make it super easy and are on the bleeding edge of NDVI Technology.