THE NORTH PLATTE TELEGRAPH FALL HARVEST Drone pesticide application taking off SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2020
C3
Though widespread use may be far off, technique has advantages
At least 60,000 to 70,000 drones are being used world- wide to apply pesticides, he said. They can reach areas of fields that ground applicators can’t reach and “airplanes and helicopters might have a hard time getting in.” Their comput-
But he added that drones’ pesticide tanks can’t car- ry more than about 5 gallons, a small fraction of the Air Tractor’s 500-gallon size. “This is not the type of appli- cation to which we’re looking to replace an airplane,” he said. Finally, drones weigh about 40 pounds without batter- ies but can only run up to 15 minutes while loaded. An Air Tractor has a working range of about 620 miles. That difference “really lim- its us in scaling this thing up to something that really could be useful for row crops,” Kruger said. “We’re really not going to go much farther than the line of sight, even if we were allowed to.” Both pesticide applicators and government regulators still have much information to gather to make good decisions and set legal policies, Kruger said. They need to know more, for
example, about the effects of the drones’ flight speeds and height on how pesticides are distributed once released over a field. “Every different drone is going to be set up differently — different nozzles, different booms, different number of ro- tors, application speeds, boom heights,” Kruger said. “There’s a lot of different combinations that we really don’t under- stand what those interactions are.” He presented information to help farmers who currently or might use drones set them for the most complete and uniform coverage. Even so, “it’s difficult to get a uniform pattern,” increasing the chances for crops to devel- op pesticide resistance or to be damaged where pesticides land where they’re not sup- posed to, he said. To watch Kruger’s Aug. 27 presentation online, visit me- diahub.unl.edu/media/14298.
site late-August workshops due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Using drones to apply pesti- cides “is not necessarily a new concept, but it’s a concept that is slowly starting to take off in the U.S.,” Kruger said. Farmers using drones must have both a U.S. Federal Aviation Administration op- erator’s license and a special FAA permit to use them to ap- ply pesticides, Kruger said. The North Platte exten- sion center has two pesticide drones with somewhat differ- ent features so they can study how they do their jobs and do them better. “Every one of these drones seems to be a little bit different in terms of their function, as to what they do and how they work,” Kruger said.
By TODD VON KAMPEN todd.vonkampen@nptelegraph.com It’s going to take some time before drones can be used on any large scale to ap- ply pesticides to farm fields, a University of Nebraska- Lincoln agronomy professor says. “This is a very imprecise science compared to what a ground or an aerial (pesticide) application might be,” said Greg Kruger, pesticide appli- cation technology specialist at UNL’s West Central Research and Extension Center in North Platte. He spoke live to registered participants in the Aug. 27 “Virtual Water and Crops Field Day,” which took the place of the center’s annual on-
er applications are also “fully autonomous,” he said, mean- ing the operator mainly has to change the bat- teries and let the drone apply the pesticides under “pre-scripted
Greg Kruger
flight plans.” Whereas an Air Tractor 502 crop duster plane passes over farm fields of 120-160 mph, Kruger said, drones apply pes- ticides while flying roughly about 9-18 mph, Kruger said. “We’re talking about speeds that are much more similar to ground applications,” he said.
Moving forward amid pandemic
Report shows 1st COVID-19 effects on economy
this year. A report by the Nebraska Farm Bureau in June esti- mated that losses might reach $3.7 billion. The potential losses for corn and soybean pro- ducers were estimated at $1.17 billion, and $971 million for beef produc- ers. Those numbers have been offset somewhat by pandemic-related financial assistance — the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act, the Paycheck Protection Program and the Coronavirus Food Assistance Program. Wellman said Nebraska producers have received nearly $711 million through CFAP. The beef sec- tor has received $387 million, and corn is the second-highest commodity with $234 million. Sign-up for the sec- ond round of the CFAP program began earli- er this month and will run through Dec. 11. Wellman said that the state also offered livestock stabilization grants of $12,000, and it is anticipated the pro- gram will exceed the $100 million that was targeted. Wellman said Nebraska producers are harvesting more than 20 million acres and have delivered “millions of head of cat- tle, hogs and poultry to the market for consum- ers” as well. “Agriculture is still going,” Wellman said. “The farmers and ranchers are working hard to get through this. Nebraska needs agriculture as a state and we all need them individually to supply our food, fuel and fi- ber.”
By TIM JOHNSON tim.johnson@ nptelegraph.com Nebraska farmers and producers had en- dured a number of economic hardships over the past decade and received anoth- er blow this year with COVID-19. The pandemic af- fected the ethanol industry, with a re- duction in travel, and the food supply as restaurants tempo- rarily closed and meatpacking plants slowed production to deal with employee health challenges. The situation has improved since late spring and early sum- mer, but livestock and commodity pric- es are still below pre-COVID-19 levels. “I am certainly not saying that we are back to where we were, but the industry has made adjustments,” said Steve Wellman, the director of the Nebraska Department of Agriculture, during a telephone interview earlier this week. “We would like to see high- er prices for all of the commodities for the producers across the board. We’re tracking back toward the posi- tive. “The federal govern- ment has worked on five international trade deals the past couple of years. We’re solidly into (the first phase) of one of the China deals and have seen some really strong purchas- es (in China). I think that has helped with the bounce-back in the prices for corn and soy- beans.” There have been few positives for the state’s agriculture industry
By JOB VIGIL jvigil@nptelegraph.com
On Wednesday, the Platte Institute and the Nebraska Farm Bureau released a joint policy brief examining the eco- nomic disruptions from COVID-19 on Nebraska’s agriculture sector. Authored by Platte Institute Policy Director Sarah Curry and Nebraska Farm Bureau senior economist Jay Rempe, the brief not only examines the complica- tions for the agriculture economy caused by the pandemic but also the im- portance of Nebraska’s agriculture, business, education and elect- ed leaders working strategically to ensure Nebraska’s agriculture sector is on the proper path for growth in a post- COVID-19 world. “Nebraska’s crop and livestock producers have been on a roller-coaster ride over the past decade regarding farm income,” Curry said. “The agri- culture economy was already on the down- side and weakened when COVID-19 hit.” The report details the first COVID-19 blow in mid-March with the shutdown of the hospi- tality, restaurant and institutional food service sector. Almost overnight, demand for food in these sectors — which account- ed for 54% of the food consumed pre-COVID-19 — went missing. Supply chains were ill- equipped to deal with the shutdown, leaving agri- culture producers with diminished markets. Stay-at-home orders furthered the difficul- ties as less travel meant less fuel consumed, lead- ing to the idling and slowdown of ethanol pro- duction. “The immediate im- pact was that corn producers lost a key etha- nol market and livestock producers lost a key feed source in ethanol by- products,” Rempe said. “The chaos in supply chains, the destruction of demand and general uncertainty caused com- modity prices to spiral downward.” The second punch came in April with the disruptions of meat pro- cessing facilities due to employee health concerns. Between shutdowns, reduced op- erations and slower speeds, the processing fa- cilities were operating at 60% to 70% of capacity at one point.
Joan von Kampen / The North Platte Telegraph One of the first sectors of the agriculture economy to take a hit in the COVID-19 pandemic was the corn market for ethanol plants, a new report from the Platte Institute and the Nebraska Farm Bureau says.
by looking at “how do we plan for something like this in the future?” The report, “Disruptions from COVID-19 on Nebraska’s Agriculture,” is avail- able at platteinstitute.org and at nefb.org.
“The upside of all of this in what Sarah talk- ed about is the COVID crisis identified some of the weaknesses in our system,” Rempe said, “where maybe we can take a look at this and get some good out of it”
Livestock pric- es plunged. Analysis released in June by Nebraska Farm Bureau suggested Nebraska’s ag- riculture economy could face nearly $3.7 billion in losses in 2020 due to COVID-19 if economic conditions did not im- prove. “Agriculture was among the hardest hit sectors of our econ- omy and as a result was among the sectors eligible for federal assis- tance,” Curry said. “The report takes a closer look at the programs and en- gagement of agriculture in the federal assistance programs through the passage of the CARES Act.” Curry said estimates suggest as much as 35% to 50% of the state’s net farm income this year could come from fed- eral assistance due to COVID-19.
Made with FlippingBook - Online Brochure Maker