The endless possibilities of drones used in agriculture have been on the minds of many agribusinesses executives for the last few years. Back when drones became a hot commodity in the farming sector, many farmers wanted a piece of the action.  It was written off in tax returns as a farm equipment, and the technology promised to bring agriculture closer too smart-farming. However, years later, farmers are still facing the same problems that existed before commercial drones were widely adopted.

These off-the-shelf drones still have limited flight times, and the maximum altitude they can fly is about 400 feet. The short flight time and height restrictions limit how drones are used on farms. Although there are some amazing agricultural drones that are outfitted with newer technology that can monitor thousands acres of cropland, the cost and features are a barrier for many farmers.

For drones to work effectively in the agricultural sector, it’s time to make a change. The horizon is promising as a Virginia based drone company called Vanilla Aircraft recorded some amazing drone flight data with an economical “big-boy” drone called Vanilla VA001.

One of the most interesting things about this drone is that it runs on diesel fuel, rather than batteries. This is something that many farmers will love to hear. The diesel-powered drone recently flew unmanned for 5 days, 1 hour, and 24 minutes. It didn’t run out of diesel and even had 3 days worth of fuel left!

The 36’ Wingspan V001 is an amazing drone and completed a journey of over 7000 miles in approximately 5 days. It was built to run for 10 days and can fly at 15,000 feet. V001 reaches speeds of 85 miles per hour and cruises at 65 miles per hour.

When you compare this to many off the shelf drones, the Vanilla Drone is a great new development. Most other drones fly for 30 minutes at a ceiling of 400 feet. As you can see, the difference is a lot, making this a potential home run for farmers.

There are some other solutions available for farm monitoring. The use of satellite imagery is an option and a company called Planet Labs is making great advances in this field. They own a network of tiny shoe-size satellites and recently resolved the problems faced by many satellite imagery systems such as poor quality and affordability. Planet Labs images are starting to show up on industry data from the likes of Dupont Pioneer’s Encirca and FarmLogs.

The Vanilla drone is not the only one that is focused on making agriculture processes more efficient. The advanced features and cost of the V001 are what makes it a truly attractive drone for many. It is exactly what the farming industry needs and of course, there is a whole lot that the drone can do better than remote satellites. For example:

• It can go anywhere you want it to go to. No matter how remote, the drone can access places that satellites cannot, and much higher resolutions.

• The cost is much lower than what it cost to launch or even re-position a satellite.

• The Vanilla drone can carry multi-spectral cameras, thermal sensors, advanced NDVI and a lot of other high-tech electronic equipment.

• The quality of data provided by the drone is much higher than what is rendered by satellite imagery. They’re more accurate and can zoom into a better resolution than what you will usually get from a satellite.

There is no comparison between a high-quality drone like the Vanilla and satellite imaging and the market for farming drones is just getting started.

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