Precision Agriculture
How drones are raising precision agriculture to new heights
When it comes to feeding the world’s ever-growing population, farmers deserve all the help they can get. To get the best out of every bit of farmland, modern farmers are turning to new technologies like drones.
Using precise data, farmers can develop a more granular way to seed and water their crops, as well as to apply fertilizer, pesticide and other sensitive chemical agents.
What is precision agriculture?

Precision agriculture involves treating different parts of the same field in unique ways. This allows farmers to divide their land along more granular lines than ever before and use every square meter in a strategic, intelligent fashion.
Traditional methods of pesticide or nutrient spraying are wasteful and not cost effective. With the ability to capture more precise measurements on individual areas — including from drone-mounted sensors — has allowed a new era of smart farming to take hold. When farmers can perform precision spraying based on accurate data, their crop yields and production can go up while waste declines.
Drones vs. Satellites

A satellite image, no matter how advanced the camera in question may be, still comes from orbit. A drone flying over a field delivers far greater proximity, and therefore image resolution. Furthermore, when a farmer uses a satellite image, the picture may be days old. A drone can provide more up-to-date information, allowing even greater precision regarding what fertilizers and pesticides are needed.
Multispectral Photogrammetry

Earth Drones can provide multispectral imaging, giving clients greater detail about how a particular crop is faring. These cameras capture more information than a standard camera, including on the near-infrared band. Using light invisible to the naked eye. Earth Drones can help farmers create more accurate drought maps and truly give crops the attention they need.
Multispectral maps like NDVI aren’t the only kind of aerial imagery Earth Drones offers. Standard maps taken in red-green-blue (RGB) formats can show farmers how crop growth is progressing. For precision agriculture purposes in order to properly analyze the health of vegetation in the environment. Multispectral drone data incorporates individual Red, Green and Blue light bands as well a Near Infrared (NIR) and Red Edge. Chlorophyll in plants reflects highly in the near infrared spectrum which humans cannot see with the naked eye. Red edge is a very specific light band between near infrared and red and therefore adds “fine tuning” to the data set. The healthier the plant, the more stable the cell walls and the more chlorophyll there is and therefore the more reflectance will be detected by the drone’s sensor. Maps are then generated from the data and numeric information related to plant health can then be determined. This allows for the observer to rapidly detect areas of noticeable plant health variations and even give insight as to where plants may start to struggle in the future.


Precision spraying and seeding from the air via agricultural drones

Earth Drones are professionals in the use of drones in precision application of chemicals such as pesticides. This is an important development for the future of agriculture. Using smaller amounts of these agents, in places where they are most needed, can support compliance with regulations calling for pesticide reduction. A drone’s ability to follow a careful flight plan over a field allows it to perform seeding or spraying duties.
Optimize Crops
Earth Drones can take on many tasks to help farmers optimize the way they manage their crops and more. Before planting even begins, Earth Drones can provide farmers with 3D generated contour maps, allowing more strategically placed crops. Earth Drones can help a farmer with crop yield estimates for insurance purposes, while also assessing the irrigation and soil moisture status of each part of a field.
Earth Drones specialize in environmental monitoring and analysis, using drones as tools to collect valuable high resolution image data we then process and analyze in specialized software. Whether bad or good, the world around us is changing rapidly, by using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), Earth Drones can analyse the farmland quicker and more accurately than ever before which in turn allows for faster management decisions that ultimately benefit agricultural practices.
Georeferenced Orthomosaic Maps
These maps are, like the orthomosaic maps, georeferenced and can therefore be overlayed into Google Earth or used in GIS software for terrain and environmental data analysis. These maps allow the observer to extract x, y and z axis information which is very useful for understanding erosion, calculating canopy volume or understanding gradients for example.



Contours can be mapped out using DEM, DSM maps for further understanding of the environment. Earth Drones can extract a large amount of data from these maps including volume, canopy heights and more. DEMs are also great for urban planning and monitoring
3D point clouds
Point clouds allow the observer to analyse the environment in 3 dimensions with incredible accuracy. These files can be used in programs such as AutoCAD and other engineering software. Point clouds are extremely powerful when it comes to extracting height information from landscapes, urban environments, forests and more. Earth Drones is able to compute and visualise height data for all environments.


Point clouds are also extremely useful for change detection within the environment. When monitoring community expansion and development, new structures and features can be determined quickly over time. Erosion and deposition can be detected on sodic sites, water courses, urban or damage lands. Areas of tree growth or removal can also be quickly ascertained.
Change detection
The image on the right shows the change in the aforementioned site after 14 months. It is clear to see that there is a lot of new growth (red) and also some reduction (blue) the most obvious reduction is the breakdown of the woody material stock piles circled in green. This is due to decomposition of the biomaterial over time. Other areas of reduction in the tree line are due to seasonal change where leave have fallen off (the two datasets that were compared were at different times of the year). Scale bar in meters

3D MODELS
3D models are a wonderful way to navigate through a landscape or environment. Large areas can be digitized and sent anywhere in the world allowing observers to visualize an environment with ease. This is a powerful way to revisit landscapes, look for differences and understand terrain for example.
Large areas can be digitized in 3D such as this tributary with is currently being cleared of alien vegetation and being monitored of and changes that may occur