Elie Company First To Receive Transport Canada Approval For UAV Pesticide Application

Jan 23, 2018

Aerial pesticide application by unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) may soon be a common sight here in Manitoba.

ROGA Drone, based in Elie, is the first company in the country to be licensed with Transport Canada to do aerial application by UAV.

Owner Don Campbell says he's working with a company out of the Ukraine.

He explained why he decided to bring the technology to Manitoba.

"I originally started out looking at UAV's for NDVI (normalized difference vegetation index) mapping, photography, and stuff like that. I thought maybe that market would get flooded in a hurry. I got the idea that there might be an application, maybe for spot spraying in some fields, or possibly wider coverage."

The Kray protection UAV uses ultra-low volume spraying and is capable of speeds up to 110 kilometres per hour.

Campbell notes he's been researching drones for this application for a couple of years. He plans to do lots of testing on the product this upcoming year.

ROGA Drone was one of 14 exhibitors featured in the Inventor's Showcase last week at Manitoba Ag Days.

Source : Steinbachonline

Video: Evolution of Beef Cattle Farming

The Clear Conversations podcast took to the road for a special episode recorded in Nashville during CattleCon, bringing listeners straight into the heart of the cattle industry. Host Tracy Sellers welcomed rancher Steve Wooten of Beatty Canyon Ranch in Colorado for a wide-ranging discussion that blended family history and sustainability, particularly as it relates to the future of beef production.

Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.