SITES Lönnstorp has recently acquired a new drone with spraying and spreading capabilities. The DJI Agras T10 has a liquid max load of eight litres and a spreader max load of six kilos, which doesn’t sound like much, but can be used in challenging situations where tractors are not an option due to difficulties with access or for treating field trials later in the season when a tractor would otherwise crush the crop. By law, it is not currently possible to spray plant protection products such as chemical or biological pesticides from a drone but it is possible to apply for an exemption for a particular case with Naturvårdsverket which we welcome researchers to do. Otherwise, your imagination is the limit as to how we can apply this new tool, remote focused irrigation, fertilization using liquid or pellets, complimentary sowing of seed following crop failure or damage, feeding animals….the list goes on. SITES Lönnstorp also has mapping software designed to be used in conjunction with the Agras T10 and other DJI drones such as the Mavic 3M multispectral drone, which can create prescription maps that can be loaded into the drone for variable rate applications. Our ambition is to use this drone in our agroforestry system within the SAFE infrastructure at Lönnstorp to reduce CO2 emissions by reducing the use of diesel-driven tractors. SITES Agroecological Field Experiment (SAFE) | Externwebben (slu.se)
If you have an idea about how this type of drone could be used in your research please contact either Ryan Davidson (ryan.davidson@slu.se) or Johannes Albertsson (Johannes.albertsson@slu.se).
Photo: Ryan Davidson