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Guardian Ag’s Crop-Spraying Drone is Replacing Dangerous Pilot Missions

By Zach Winn

Every year during the growing season, thousands of pilots across the country climb into small planes loaded with hundreds of pounds of pesticides and fly extremely close to the ground at upward of 140 miles an hour, unloading their cargo onto rows of corn, cotton, and soybeans.

The world of agricultural aviation is as dangerous as it is vital to America’s farms. Unfortunately, fatal crashes are common. Now Guardian Ag, founded by former MIT Electronics Research Society (MITERS) makers Adam Bercu and Charles Guan ’11, is offering an alternative in the form of a large, purpose-built drone that can autonomously deliver 200-pound payloads across farms. The company’s drones feature an 18-foot spray radius, 80-inch rotors, a custom battery pack, and aerospace-grade materials designed to make crop spraying more safe, efficient, and inexpensive for farmers.

“We’re trying to bring technology to American farms that are hundreds or thousands of acres, where you’re not replacing a human with a hand pump — you’re replacing a John Deere tractor or a helicopter or an airplane,” Bercu says.

“With Guardian, the operator shows up about 30 minutes before they want to spray, they mix the product, path plan the field in our app, and it gives an estimate for how long the job will take,” he says. “With our fast charging, you recharge the aircraft while you fill the tank, and those two operations take about the same amount of time.”

Source : mit.edu

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Our journey through the corridors of power and the fields of grain begins with a special guest, Branden Leslie, Member of Parliament for Portage-Lisgar and a proud alumnus of the Grain Growers of Canada. Branden, a native of Portage La Prairie, Manitoba, brings a wealth of knowledge from his time as a political advisor and his tenure as the manager of policy and government relations with the GGC, to his recent election to the House of Commons.

As we sit down with Branden on a late Friday afternoon, fresh from his duties at the House of Commons, we'll dive into the intersection of agriculture and politics, his journey from advocacy to elected office, and how these experiences shape his views on the future of Canadian agriculture. And, as we're doing this over a couple of well-deserved beers, we'll also touch on the lighter side of life, including Brandon's recent venture into fatherhood.