Acknowledgments Much of this article is based on a session I attended at the 2026 Drone End-User Conference in Kansas City. I want to acknowledge the insightful information provided by the three speakers, as well as the ~200 audience members that asked honest questions and shared their experiences. The speakers were Mr. Chase Plumer (Owner, […]
Read More… from Drone Tendering – Considerations before Buying or Building
The Hypothesis The results of a recent herbicide deposition study performed with the DJI T100 led us to observe that after ~13 m/s, swath width and drift were no longer directly related to travel speed; They appeared unaffected. The result was completely unexpected as it was counter to several years of prior study with smaller […]
Read More… from The Carvalho Boom and the Stages of Quadcopter Flight
“If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it”. While the source is nebulous (Peter Drucker, Lord Kelvin, or Antoine-Augustin Cournot), the sentiment is clear. The status quo In the world of crop protection, considerable resources are expended to distribute a pesticide over a target. And yet, sprayer operational settings and spray coverage are rarely […]
Read More… from Wanted: A new technology for assessing spray coverage (The Spray Doctor – Part 1)
Introduction Investing in an optical sprayer for horticulture is not a straightforward financial decision. Compared with a conventional boom sprayer, the upfront capital cost is substantially higher, often by an order of magnitude, and most commercial systems require an annual software or service subscription to operate. Despite these barriers, adoption is accelerating, and many growers […]
Read More… from Evaluating the return on investment of optical sprayers for horticulture
This case study is taking place on a 15 acre highbush blueberry operation in southern Ontario. In 2016, considerable pressure from spotted-wing drosophila (SWD) prompted the growers to make changes to their crop management practices and their spray program. They employed a three-pronged approach to improving crop protection: We have been tracking pesticide use, water […]
Read More… from Crop-Adapted Spraying in Highbush Blueberry: Nine years of pesticide savings