Drones to the rescue

When you see a drone flying over agricultural land, snapping photos, it is safe to assume that Ross Walters is the man behind the drone.

The Salt Rock resident is a partner at Agri-Sense International, a company that provides real time aerial and geographical data for agriculture.

“There is an old saying, the best fertiliser is boots in the field. Our business it to try put the boots in the right place,” he said with a chuckle.

“The data we provide helps to improve efficiency, increase productivity and reduce the environmental impacts of agricultural operation,” said Walters, who saw a niche in the mapping market.

“We often struggled to do our work, because the available maps were outdated and sending guys into the field on foot to create maps is terribly slow,” he said.

Walters saw a programme about drones, which he knew would be the right tool for the business.

“We waited till about three years ago for the drone technology to reach a point where we could take them into Africa for work.”

He works a lot in Malawi, Mozambique, Ghana and Nigeria, where there is demand for South African expertise in agriculture.

“Malawi for example has a lot of EU funded irrigation projects for small scale agricultural developments, which are projects we lack in our country,” he said.

Creating maps with drones makes their work much faster, super accurate and more cost effective. The drones can cover between 150 to 200 hectares in a flight, which can last between 30 minutes to an hour depending on the wind.

“The drone flies at about 40 km per hour and takes a photo every seven seconds, recording the position and height of each feature it takes a photo of, therefore we can create a 3D point on the map every half metre.”

They can also use infrared cameras on the drones to measure chlorophyll levels, which indicates plant health.

“Healthy plants absorb light and therefore have high chlorophyll levels, whereas stressed plants reflects light.”

Flying a drone is not that easy though, because of the strict legislation, particularly in South Africa.

“We have to have an airband radio licence and with the new drone regulations, we will probably need professional pilot licences too,” said Walters.

The actual flight is completely computer-driven, as a route is created over the land that needs to be covered. Once everything is set up, the drone is literally chucked into the air and off it goes.

Walters said that he can fly at a maximum height of about 400 feet in South Africa, whereas other African countries allow up to about 1 500 feet.

“The drone is designed to take a crash, as every landing is basically a controlled crash.”

Once the data is captured and the photos are stitched into a map, the data can be sent to a tablet or phone and so the clients can use the map and see which areas need attention.

Drones might have started out as an expensive toy, but now these powerful data capturing instruments are improving the way we farm and plan.

So get your phone out and put your boots on.