Innovations

Iowa crop consultant anxious to utilize his UAV

ken-power farming show-uavs 12-14-editOne of the big topics of conversation at farm meetings and farm shows this year has been unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and what they can potentially do for farmers and ranchers.

At the recent Nebraska Power Farming Show in Lincoln, Brent Johnson with Labre Crop Consulting of Manson, Iowa told Brownfield he’s been testing UAVs and he’s anxious to offer the service to his customers.

Johnson was exhibiting the eBee UAV, which is made by Swiss sensor manufacturer senseFly.

“I’ve been using the opportunity to fly this over my own farm, to get our company in a position to learn as much as we can about how it flies, why we need to fly it in certain times of day and certain crop stages,” Johnson says, “and figure out how we can actually produce a deliverable to our customers that’s going to have some traction when they actually get that from us, rather than us trying to learn how to do that when the FAA has full clearance for us to do so.”

The FAA is still working on a master plan to integrate UAVs into the national airspace system.

AUDIO: Brent Johnson

 

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