A NEW drone demonstration zone was in operation on both days at Cereals 2016, showing how they could be used for crop management.

Using an ‘off-the-peg’ pocket camera on a multi-rotor drone, visitors were able to plan a flight and then view the resulting images. While they are accurate to 1m2 they provide information down to 2cm, said Keith Geary, director of sponsors, AgHawk.

“With average flights now being able to map 30-50 acres, drones are an efficient and effective way of assessing a crop’s health, especially when compared to crop walking the same acreage.”

The AgHawk software facilitates the pre-programming of flights and individual images taken are geotagged and ‘stitched’ together via a web portal. Filters are then be applied and the resulting files used for example by farm machinery for variable rate applications.