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Page 24 Stories of the Heartland • Sunday, April 19, 2026 hometownsource. com / heartland /
different people.
His first story detailed how he had worked with a farmer to spray fertilizer on an apple tree that had never grown a single apple in the eight years since it had been planted. Out of“ dumb luck,” the timing for spraying the fertilizer on the apple tree was perfect.
“ Now all of a sudden, you can see the first picture here with trees tipping over because there’ s so many apples on the tree that he had to stake it up,” Behrens said.
Behrens shared another story where a field that had been flooded had seeds for cover crops dropped into the water by a drone. The seeds sank to the bottom of the water and were able to grow once the flooding subsided, saving the entire field’ s harvest. In another farmer’ s harvest, Behren’ s work treating the fields with drones resulted in an average yield of 250 bushels per acre across the entire farm, which the farmer was very happy about.
Behrens’ final story demonstrated how aerial mosquito treatment can help beyond just farmland. The city of Graceville, Minnesota had a big golf tournament planned for Labor Day, but the amount of mosquitos on the golf course threatened to shut the event down. Fortunately, however, Behrens was there to save the day, spraying for mosquitos prior to the tournament. When the day of the tournament came, golfers could compete without fear of being bitten.
In an interview following the presentation, Behrens spoke more about how recent changes in regulations regarding drones may affect what drones are available and how expensive they are to purchase.
Behrens explained how the Federal Communications Commission had created a Dec. 23, 2025 deadline for foreign drone manufacturers to reach compliance with standards for humane working conditions and fair pay for people making these drones in other countries. Unfortunately, that deadline passed with many drone manufacturers, most notably DJI in China, failing to meet these compliance standards. This means that until these manufacturers are able to demonstrate that they are in compliance with these standards, they are banned from selling new drones in the United States.
Behrens clarified that any drone already existing in the United States can still legally be sold and used, so until the existing stock of drones is depleted, consumers may not see an immediate impact. However, once these drones are all bought up, demand for drones may rise above the supply for them from other manufacturers, potentially resulting in increased prices.
“ Those drones are extremely expensive, and it’ s on average about 2.1 % to 2.2 % higher cost than foreign-made,” Behrens said.“ But now we’ re taking all foreign-made drones out of the equation and putting all of that pressure on American-made drone manufacturers, so there’ s going to be a huge shortage of agricultural drones especially, but just across the drone industry itself, it’ s going to put a lot more pressure on these American-made drone manufacturers to not only meet the compliance that the federal government has, but then producing enough to meet that demand.”
Despite some uncertainties around changing regulations and drone supply, Behrens said he is dedicated to doing all he can to provide his customers with the best drones and drone-related services to help farmers and non-farmers alike reach their goals.
With the use of drones in agriculture, the sky may no longer be the limit.
For any questions or inquiries about services from Natural North, LLC, Behrens can be connected via phone at( 218) 297- 0110 or email at kevin @ naturalnorthllc. com. Natural North’ s website can be found online at www. naturalnorthllc. com.
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