Broadacre farming 'first'
Mingenew broadacre farmers are the first in Australia to use drones to help manage their crops.
More than 300 people at Mingenew-Irwin Group’s Spring Field Day last Thursday witnessed the flight of a pioneering multicopter.
The drone is able to monitor crop seeding, crop density, nutrition, soil types, weeds and disease in broadacre crops, and calculate yields based on this information.
The prototype demonstrated weighed about 4kg and had a flight time of about eight minutes — other prototypes weighing up to 14kg are able to fly for up to 45 minutes.
New Era Ag-Tech, Data into Profit and Mingenew-Irwin Group have joined forces in a three-year agreement to build the drone, fly it over MIG trial sites and crunch the information collected into useful, meaningful data.
“This is the first time this has been used in broadacre farming in Australia — Mingenew-Irwin Group is the first group in the country to be working with this technology,” said Data into Profit chief executive officer Richard Riddle.
Full story in today's Midwest Times.
Data into Profit chief executive officer Richard Riddle and New Era Ag-Tech owner Warren Abrams with the revolutionary ’agriculture drone’. Picture: Darcy Hay
