Aerial Precision Planter - a definite win

[colinjfischer]

If you don't mind, I want to share the best thing I've done with drones recently.

My company was contracted by a long-time customer to develop and test a precision agriculture tool for a drone. Basically, what they wanted was a linear accelerator that could plant seeds using a drone.

So that is what we built. The systems are proprietary to the customer, but we tested it and flew it last year. I included an image. It was the day I got to add "test pilot" to my logbook and I was pretty happy.

I know there are a couple others out there doing this work, but I dare say that this system is the most advanced on out there to date.

And if I can talk up my customer a bit, you can get more info at www.paratrees.com.

 

[ArrUnTuS]

Good work, how nice it is to see that drones have more and more uses. Seems there's no end to this, congratulations

 

[Norm Kokes]

This is a great project but I have a question. Why use a drone when one could just use a conventional tractor and seeding machine? I grew up on a farm so I can see planting 40 acres of trees in about 2 hours with conventional methods. Not being critical but just asking for clarification.

Thanks

 

[colinjfischer]

This is a great project but I have a question. Why use a drone when one could just use a conventional tractor and seeding machine? I grew up on a farm so I can see planting 40 acres of trees in about 2 hours with conventional methods. Not being critical but just asking for clarification.

Thanks

Hi Norm; you know, I have to be honest that I don't actually know if there is a good market for it. They seemed to think that there was, or that they could do something faster and cheaper. I know its a bit of a cop-out but my job was just to build the system, and I thought it was pretty darn cool to both build and then fly it.

That being said, Precision Agriculture is something that I am interested in, so I am going to keep my ear to the ground on it.

 

[Norm Kokes]

I am sure there is a market but it may be more inline with hard or impossible to get to locations. Also I can see a future for bio insertion and pest control.