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Using Your Farm Drone to Conduct Field Stand Counts for Corn and Soybeans

By Kevin Brooks

Competition for farmland is fierce. Many other farmers may want to work the same land you do, whether renting or buying. Farming is a highly competitive business. Being efficient in business is essential to successful farm operations. Prioritizing management activities that will increase profitability enables improvements to the bottom line. 

Conducting crop stand counts with your farm drone will be a worthwhile management endeavor to help improve farm profits. A uniform stand of the growing crop means higher yields and higher profits. The timing of replant decisions is critical to success. A farmer cannot easily see what is happening across an entire field, and driving in a truck or ATV is time-consuming. With a drone, the farmer can analyze a larger field in a few short minutes with a general flyover, which could include lowering the drone to get a complete picture of the situation.  Using a drone for farm business requires the FAA Part 107 Certification.

Drone Mapping Takes Time

A complete drone mapping of your field can take significant time. While these maps provide valuable information, fully mapping an eighty-acre field is time-consuming. Preparation for the flight, flight time, and managing thousands of photos can take the farm producers hours to complete. Full field maps produce a lot of information; however, a farmer doesn’t have to map a whole field to get a good stand count analysis.

Source : illinois.edu

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