DAWN was almost an hour away as Scott Fisher towed his cage trailer off Sneesbys Lane and across the grass beside the freshly tilled paddock near the Richmond River at Wardell in Northern NSW.
The glow in the east was enough for him to see as he unloaded and unfolded the drone, placing it a few metres behind the trailer.
He set up the tripod base station a bit further away, mixed up the required 80 litres of herbicide in the 100 litre tank using water from the caged 1000L cube and began connecting batteries to the generator he'd pulled into noisy life.
His small white survey drone was placed on the ground beside the tailgate of his ute and he opened his laptop, bringing up the highly refined program that uncomplicated the complexities of evenly applying liquids over areas of crop.
The tailgate is his "office".
RELATED READING
The surveyor drone surged into humming life as it lifted about 50 metres and was guided above and across the area to be treated.
Scott dropped "pins" around the mapped area shown in aerial photographic form on his screen and transferred this information to the controlling program of the big working drone.
It is the only one of its type and size in Australia; it is 2.6m wide, 2m deep, six rotors, eight nozzles and a 16L tank for the payload.
It is so good, he has more on order.
Today's job is to apply a pre-emergent herbicide to the soil to selectively kill emerging broadleaf weeds prior to the planting of the zucchini and soybean crops.
Later today on its next job, the drone would be applying insecticides over a macadamia crop an hour's drive up the Richmond, on the other side of Lismore.
A few weeks ago it was spraying a "whitewash" Sudlac Eclipse LD, over protective cropping structures to reduce the indoor temperature and conserve moisture for the cucumber crops inside.
That task on a similar shed done by manpower, had a man on the roof aiming the applicator nozzle, another on the ground wrestling the hose and a third operating the pump, mixing, etc... and it took over two weeks.
The drone, operated by Scott with an offsider, did the same sized shed in a day.
The drone also used 120kg less product to do the same level of 30 per cent shading - a saving of $792 in product cost alone.
For a 50pc shading, the saving would have been $1600.
Using drones for this job is a no-brainer. But that was before Christmas; now it is January 10 and the sun is hanging just above the horizon like a gigantic orange Chinese lantern.
Scott touches the screen a couple of times and swipes a bar at the bottom to the left and the drone rises 5m, obediently turns and heads to the far corner of the crop area, pivots to face along the tilled furrows, drops to 2.5m then commences spraying and tracking at about 12kph.
At the end of that pass, the spraying stops as the drone U-turns over the grass and perfectly aligns itself 4m parallel to its first track line.
Just before it leaves the grass, the nozzles begin delivery.
Those first droplets fall precisely on the start of the soil, not on the grass, and, the edge of this pass is precisely aligned to the edge of the first pass.
Current boom sprayers couldn't do any better. Remember, this is a herbicide and gaps would mean weeds, and overlap equals waste.
When the 16L tank is emptied, magic happens.
The drone knows the exact spot, heads directly to its loading spot behind Scott's trailer and lands.
Within a minute, the 16L tank has been replaced and the drone is in the air directly back to the spot where it ran out.
Well, not exactly; actually it lines itself up on the uncompleted row and recommences delivery just before the spot so there is no gap, no overlap, no waste.
When the battery becomes too depleted to be able to deliver another full load, Scott knows about it and removes and replaces the battery when changing the 16L tank which adds maybe 10 seconds to the changeover time.
Depleted batteries are plugged into the Inverter/generator and with sufficient batteries and a generator of sufficient capacity, crop application could continue non-stop all day.
Between changeovers, Scot has time to talk and explain how all this has happened since January 2019 just a year ago.
"It took me awhile to select the drones" he said.
"Then I had to find innovative growers who would allow me to learn on their paddocks and crops, then to find the right people to talk to in the regulations world, and get approvals, licences.
"Ace Ohlsson/Elders Rural and their agronomists have been a great help."
Scott was himself an agronomist in what now almost seems another life.
He has cloned himself with someone in Qld and plans more drone-clones in every food bowl around the nation.
And, what specific benefits could growers expect if they opened up their operations to include drones?
"There's a few," Scot said.
"Precision application seems a given. In the current 'dry', water usage is critical; 80L/ha is way more frugal than 600-800L/ha for the same result.
"There could be added value if the wheel compaction of tractors and trailers was eliminated allowing 100pc crop on a plot; that extra crop has a measurable dollar value.
"Then there's the farmer getting his 'druthers'; he'd 'druther' be anywhere but sitting for hours in a tractor.
"And of course growers will do their own sums- using their own or paid labour, time and equipment, added to the diesel and maintenance associated with using their own equipment could cost them a lot more dollars than using a service provider when everything is totted up, and then there's the opportunity to do other things with their time."
We are in the dawn of the drones.
Have a look at this new horizon by checking out skytechsolutions.com.au website or phone him: 0458 486 856, preferably not at dawn when he is flying his drones.
- Ion Staunton is an entomologist and the owner of Pestech Australia Pty Ltd, manufacturer of PyBo Natural Pyrethrins Insecticidal Concentrate. Any entomological questions you'd like answered? Call him on 0407 308 867
