trends & technologies
COULD
DRONEs
BE RUNNING
YOUR GREENHOUSE SOON?
Drones are everywhere these days. For the agricultural community,
major headway in research and development could mean greater use
of these little mechanized workers in gardens in the near future.
BY TIM JENNINGS
76
Maximum Yield USA | January 2017
A
s president of a company that manufactures
custom cases for drones and UAVs, I get an
early look at advances in the drone industry.
One movement that seems to be growing in
strength is the use of drones in agriculture.
As we’ve all grown accustomed to the idea
of drones used in farming operations, I know
this might seem like old news. After all, for
several years, these mighty machines have
been successfully scouting livestock and
crops, capturing data to help farmers make
precise season-based decisions, providing
inventory information, identifying sick crops,
and taking care of pesticide application. But
recently, researchers in drone technology have
been busy as bees developing what might
become the most important technological
advancements in agriculture and horticulture
so far. These tiny workers, classified as micro
drones, as well as regular-sized indoor drones,
have been under R&D in institutions around
the world for some time, but scientists in
the US and Spain have made
headway recently that
could be bringing dronebased greenhouse
applications into the
mainstream soon.