Farmers in Nebraska are using camera drones to inspect center-pivot irrigation systems from the edge of the field, sparing themselves long walks through tall corn, Farm Progress reports.

Skyles Kinkaid, a Hartington farmer who runs a custom spraying business, said he once checked a diesel pivot's fuel tank simply by flying a drone out and zooming in. Small drones cost about $5,500, can pay for themselves quickly, and the latest models can be flown up to 5 miles away, allowing several pivots to be inspected from one spot. Adam Shanks of Purdue University Extension said his drone has 112x zoom, enough to see nuts and bolts, and diseases and insects on corn, from 200 feet away.

Angela Knuth, who farms corn and soybeans under 18 pivots, has used a drone to diagnose a flat tyre that caused one tower to wrap into another, a pivot that slid into a creek after a GPS error, a broken drive shaft and a gearbox failure. Her husband, Kerry, said knowing the fault meant he could bring the right Valley gearbox and tools the first time instead of walking "800 feet … through corn, across the rows".

Shanks said infrared cameras can also reveal leaks and plugged nozzles through the cold-water signature and spot hot, failing motors or bearings, a safety gain where frayed wiring can electrify a pivot. Eric Anderson, an extension educator at Michigan State University, called drones a "Swiss Army knife" that also scout crops, map fields, monitor livestock and seed cover crops.

Not everyone is convinced. Jeremiah Johnson of Central Valley Irrigation, which inspects and winterises more than 2,000 pivots a year, said setup took more than 10 minutes and walking out was faster — "maybe. But not yet," he said of drones replacing people. Irrigation educator Lyndon Kelley warned that water shortages at the far end of a machine are gradual and hard to see from the air.

The report was written by Andy Castillo for Farm Progress.

Photo: Codrin.B / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Source: Farm Progress