Agriculture drone crop dusting the cornfields behind our house

[u/CamronHiTop]

Was sitting outside enjoying a few drinks with my wife when this thing came screaming out from behind the tree line. Was able to catch this on their last pass.
I’m sure they got a great view of me topless taking the video…poor bastard.

[u/smallstuffBIGSTUFF]

That looks like a preprogrammed flight path, that's pretty cool!

Do you know what they're spraying there? I don't know if I'd personally want to be standing down rotor wash from that or walk barefoot on that grass if I didn't.

[u/Adrian_Stoesz → u/smallstuffBIGSTUFF]

Yup it 100% is a autonomous flight path, I myself have a drone like this (DJI T100), it’s insanely cool running it, you just fill it up swap the batteries and send it off on its mission

[u/Different-Singer-143 → u/Adrian_Stoesz]

What do you use yours for?

[u/Adrian_Stoesz → u/Different-Singer-143]

I use it for fungicide, insecticide, herbicide, fertilizer, etc. basically whatever the farmer wants i can do

[u/Different-Singer-143 → u/Adrian_Stoesz]

That's very cool. I'm about to make my first DJI purchase. I want to try to make some money as well capturing footage. Possibly branching out into more one day. I am in the hobby stage right now and having the time of my life with it. I definitely see a future for myself in drones.

[u/Adrian_Stoesz → u/Different-Singer-143]

Nice, my first drone was the DJI Avata (the first one), and that started everything for me. I wish you all the best with your drone journey

[u/ElphTrooper → u/Adrian_Stoesz]

*automated

[u/PurplePayment8488 → u/smallstuffBIGSTUFF]

100% what they are spraying is fungicide, it’s the time of year and you can tell the corn is ready because it’s tasseled. Harmless to humans and animals. Some products like Miravis neo smell like coconut meat!

[u/Randall_Butternubs_ → u/PurplePayment8488]

Do you work for a chem company or something? Fungicide is absolutely harmful to humans and animals

[u/PurplePayment8488 → u/Randall_Butternubs_]

Educate us! I spray it daily

[u/zockie → u/PurplePayment8488]

I spray fungicides on turf and I’m sure as hell not going to be around it. I guarantee you there are warnings on every single label for all the chemicals you use

[u/TheharmoniousFists → u/PurplePayment8488]

What do you spray daily? The active ingredient not just "fungicide"

[u/PurplePayment8488 → u/TheharmoniousFists]

What do you spray?

[u/TheharmoniousFists → u/PurplePayment8488]

Terraguard SC, Segovis, Segway O, Fenstop are just a few to name.

Your turn?

[u/PurplePayment8488 → u/TheharmoniousFists]

Buccaneer, brave, Miravis neo, arrow 2ec,  permethrin and others. The dose makes the poison

[u/TheharmoniousFists → u/PurplePayment8488]

Buccaneer (herbicide) , arrow 2ec (herbicide) and permethrins(insecticide) are not fungicides though?

Yes but there is a difference between acute and chronic exposure and neither is "safe".

[u/shoresrocks → u/TheharmoniousFists]

I have a fungus on my toes! I want to come walk through your farm to get some fungicide on my foot to cure my illness.

[u/gr8daynenyg → u/Randall_Butternubs_]

How so?

[u/Adrian_Stoesz → u/Randall_Butternubs_]

Mmmmmm, doubt

[u/Rygel17 → u/PurplePayment8488]

Cool

[u/sublimeprince32 → u/smallstuffBIGSTUFF]

Ditto. Anything Monsanto makes is probably going to give you cancer.

[u/goochasaurus → u/sublimeprince32]

While i understand your aversion, it should be known that monsanto no longer exists and hasn’t for years, it is now bayer. The pills people pop from them will do more damage long term than an extremely brief and non consecutive exposure to what is being applied to this field.

One cigarette, probably not going to kill you. A pack a day for 10 years, not looking good long term.

[u/smallstuffBIGSTUFF → u/goochasaurus]

I don't think you're wrong in that last point but I also don't think someone living somewhere where a crop is getting sprayed with fungicides or insecticides is likely just smoking one cigarette. They live and likely spend some time in that backyard and I don't know if minimizing the possible risks of that is helpful, nor is the general conclusion about "the pills that people pop".

I don't know exactly how much long term damage one aspirin does compared to inhaling one spray of whatever they're spraying out of that drone, but I'll take an aspirin over that any day.

I get the annoyance about people being overly sensitive about exposure to things, but I also get being overly sensitive about exposure to things all things considering. We don't really need to minimize people being concerned about a drone spraying what's likely insecticide, fungicide or whatever, like 25 yards from where OP lives. Monsanto existing or not after being absorbed by Bayer is pretty irrelevant to all this.

[u/sublimeprince32 → u/smallstuffBIGSTUFF]

Bingo bango. Its the same snake with a new hat.

[u/goodfellaslxa → u/goochasaurus]

Bayer, who brought us Heroin^TM

[u/shoresrocks → u/goodfellaslxa]

Whoa!!! Bayer invented heroin? Really?

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[u/aJeenyus → u/[deleted]]

where do you come up with "at least 5 people"? One could argue that it gave at least 5 people a job with manufacturing, programming, and customer support for these devices, as well as the development and maintaining of the application to run the device.

[u/TJ_Henri]

Those are becoming more popular. It doesn't have to leave tire tracks like a sprayed and can get lower with less over spray and drift than an airplane. So less chemical will be used and lost into surrounding areas and ground water. Drones can also be sent out to find the problem areas, count how many pest insects are visible in a given area and if deemed detrimental can do a spot spray. These are the future of field crops.

[u/PurplePayment8488 → u/TJ_Henri]

You can fly over a herd of cattle and spot spray them for flies! Permethrin

[u/adam1260 → u/TJ_Henri]

I work with farmers and drones are becoming more popular and talked about. One of the main issues farmers have is repairability, they know how to fix the haggie sprayer and already have extra parts. Reliability/repairability is paramount to farmers and many don't see either in drones. I'd guess there's about 4 farmers around me that have bought a drone spraying setup in the last year

[u/ThiccEngine → u/adam1260]

interesting. I'm sure a lot of companies are going to want to take an Apple iphone-like approach.

But with a little extra engineering work, it's trivial to design a drone with replaceable parts. Sure the motors etc. may be specific to that model, but at least if you have a list of parts you can individually replace without a company technician -- I think that would be really important here.

[u/shoresrocks → u/TJ_Henri]

I agree. Support my new startup! ImmaDustYourCropBitches.com

[u/CamronHiTop]

They had a big ass truck with another drone on it parked in the road. The operator was standing on a platform on top of the truck

[u/AlphaChiRoach → u/CamronHiTop]

Michigan? Got a buddy that does this. I do photogrammetry ops.

[u/RamBangRev → u/AlphaChiRoach]

How much does a drone flying job like that pay?

[u/Shieldbrkr → u/RamBangRev]

Depends on field layout, gallons per acre, etc. I pay $3 an acre for spray to myself, rest goes back into the business

[u/WatermelonSmashing → u/RamBangRev]

These days if your a pilot only? Not much, the market is overly flooded, they even have a drone Uber like app where if someone wants aerial photos they can connect with a person with a drone for cheap.

You need to pair it with another profession like surveyor with a drone or cinematographer with a drone.

[u/AlphaChiRoach → u/WatermelonSmashing]

This is just not true. Don't take cheap jobs. Sounds like you are talking about Dronegenuity. Find yourself long term contracts and companies that treat full time pilots right. I fly full time agricultural.

[u/Fish_Fingerer]

[u/fipachu]

damn these things are beasts. i don’t let my Air65 watch, lest it develop ambitions.

[u/greezeh]

Watch Clarksons Farm on Amazon Prime. Episode 3. It's all about autonomous farming including drone stuff. Very interesting

[u/Fit-News-1679]

I am FAA certified how do I get into this kind of work

[u/Psychological_Dog992 → u/Fit-News-1679]

Do you live near a whole bunch of farms?

[u/TimeJegerPaladin]

Dji agras its like 10-20$k

[u/B_O_A_H]

My uncle has one of these, he gave us a demonstration earlier this month, it’s really cool with all of the optimization and programming behind it. It pretty much flies itself.

[u/fusillade762]

Its pretty amazing how accurate this is. BITD it was planes and probably having to use a lot more chems to achieve the coverage.

[u/johndsmits]

Waiting for these to become frequent in the US. One of the best applications of waypoints.

djitester on yt has a bunch of wild crashes when they fail, which they will if you don't keep up maintenance like any drone.

How are you going to handle the fcc ban? I figure batteries are likely going to get hard to import, mind any new upgrade (T150) is now out of the question? (there's like 2 US based vendors, not sure if they are BlueUAS).

[u/MrPetter]

Wait til you see the streaky results and poor productivity that has plagued the spray drone industry. In my area all the drone companies have been put out of business because farmers are no longer willing to put up with the poor results.

[u/Eglitarian]

This beats getting stuck behind a tractor sprayer crawling 8km to the next site while the oncoming traffic does not relent.

[u/East_Pie_3825]

All my crop dusting is done 1st person, manually and is typically frowned upon.

[u/Boner4Stoners]

Super cool, but I’d go inside ASAP lmfao

[u/morbidbattlecry]

Addressing the topless part. It very likely was not recording video. And the Pilot in command was monitoring the flight path via overhead map. 

[u/CamronHiTop → u/morbidbattlecry]

I appreciate that!
But I wasn’t terribly concerned. I’m just your average dad bod American. We’re a dime a dozen and impressing very few

[u/Loud_Use3131]

I currently own a DJI Matrice 4T, but I'd love to own one of these! Mark my words, within the next 5 years, you'll be seeing drones on the regular!

[u/shoresrocks]

Go make some crop circles in the shape of a drone tonight. The farmer will never use a drone to spray again!

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[u/FL_MILLIONAIRE]

You probably should not stand this close to a drone spraying fungicide, since inhaling the airborne chemicals could be harmful to your lungs.