Joseph Graham with the New Brunswick Soil and Crop Improvement Association (NBSCIA) spoke at the Canadian Forage and Grassland Association’s (CFGA) 16th Annual Conference: Greener Horizons: Technological Innovations in Forage and Grassland Management, which took place Nov. 18 to 21 in Fredericton, New Brunswick, and was organized in partnership with the NBSCIA. Joseph addressed the conference to talk about drones and the opportunities they offer to agriculture. 
 
He began by discussing the differences between standard drones and agricultural drones and the rules and regulations associated with them. He stressed the key limitations associated with agricultural drones: the requirements around piloting them and the rules and regulations around spraying, including the limited products approved for spray application. 
 
“There are no products you can spray other than foliar applications of nitrogen,” he explained. “You can’t spray herbicides or fungicides yet in Canada, whereas in the States, anything that was approved for aerial application was allowed to be sprayed by drone.” 
 
He reviewed the requirements for operating drones. Drones under 249 grams, which are commonly used for photos and 4K videos do not require any special licensing. When you get into the larger size drones, they need to be registered and the category of drone needs to be identified. Operators of larger drones require a valid drone pilot certificate. All the regulations are available on Transport Canada’s website. 
 
“The online test is very technical, but very little of it has to do with operating a drone,” he said. “There was a ton of stuff that I didn’t expect when I started studying for it: radiotelephony, theory of flight, air law, air traffic rules and producers. So, it is very difficult if you’re just approaching it as a drone person.” 
 
New rules were introduced by Transport Canada in November for medium drones, those within the 25Kg to 150Kg range, which removed the requirement for Special Flight Operation Certification. 
 
“This means you can operate a drone with just your advanced license, which really opens the door for a lot of agricultural uses,” he explained. 
 
When it comes to spray functionality of the drones there’s a lot to learn as it is a different process to calibrate compared to traditional sprayers.  
 
“A drone which is only eight to 10 feet wide can spray widths of 30 feet or more,” he explained. “You’re blanketing the crop with whatever you’re spraying. You can push a lot more product through the drone and the drone can operate a lot faster, spreading more product. 
 
He says one opportunity for the drone is frost seeding of fields as the drone can deliver seed without touching the ground, unlike tractors which often can’t get on the fields in the early spring. 
 
“I’ve done frost seeding with a four-wheeler in February, March when it’s minus two and your span is a seven-to-eight-foot width and you’ve got 10 to 15 acres to do,” Joseph said. “Its’ about an hour with a spray drone or spreading drone. That really increases your capacity to put down seed in bad or poor conditions depending on the season.” 
 
While the numbers vary by drone, based on capacity and speeds, he says there is potential to spray 40 to 50 acres an hour. 
 
He added that there’s a lot of opportunity in sectors such as Christmas trees and blueberries even if its simply carrying in fertilizer to the middle of the stand. 
 
“You could literally hook brush onto a drone and fly it out of the woods,” he said. “There’s a lot that hasn’t been tested or trialed and I think producers are just starting learn of all the possibilities.” 
 
He closed his presentation talking about using drones to map farms quickly and efficiently. He said one of the biggest challenges his organization faces is getting quality mapping of the farms they support whether they’re doing environmental farm planning or work with OFCAF.  
 
“Some of the maps we get are a hand sketch of the farm,” he said. “If you let the drone do that, you can do your whole farm quite quickly.” 
 
And, unlike working with satellite imagery, cloud cover won’t impact the visual, especially if you’re looking for an optimal window for your cropping season. 
 
“There’s a huge list of things that map stuff, and a huge list of things you put data into and get data out of,,” he said. “Satellite and drone imagery allow you to get variable rate applications and spot treatments done. We need to put it into something which producers can use.” 
 
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