Using Drones To Scout Almonds From Above

Using Drones To Scout Almonds From Above

The drone being used to fly the 35-acre test block at California State University, Fresno, can be flown by a grower. (Photo Credit: AeroVironment)

It sounds like an almond grower’s magnificent dream: Instead of having people walking orchard blocks to make sure your trees are getting adequate irrigation, you just whip out your phone or tablet and chart a course for your drone.

But if the scientists involved in a new project are correct, this is no dream. When growers wake up in the morning, they can draw up a flight plan and check various orchards — without ever leaving their front porch.

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Researchers at California State University, Fresno recently agreed to partner with AeroVironment, a Southern California company specializing in unmanned aircraft systems, to find out how much water stress can be picked up with aerial imagery.

Athanasios Alexandrou, Professor and Chairman of the Industrial Technology Department at Fresno State’s Jordan College of Agriculture, said they are now reviewing the literature to determine what levels of stress they will put on a test orchard, a 35-acre block of ‘Nonpareil,’ ‘Aldrich,’ and ‘Price’ that is located on campus.

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Following a predetermined schedule, they will fly the orchard with a drone to collect imagery. At the same time, down on the ground, they will be collecting moisture levels of both the soils and the leaves. They will then correlate the data, concluding how much stress can be determined through the air, Alexandrou says.

“The long-term goal of this kind of project is collecting and analyzing data to investigate if drones can pick up water stress without the need to do soil or leaf sampling at some point in the future,“ he says.

Cutting Irrigation
Any research that can enable almond growers to use less water would be welcome. Until the recent welcome winter storms, growers were being targeted by people claiming the crop uses inordinate amounts of water.

It’s not really true that almonds use a lot more water than other crops. University of California Cooperative Extension Farm Advisor David Doll, aka “The Almond Doctor,” notes that virtually all food crops need about one liter of water to produce one calorie. Almond growers, who now farm close to 1 million acres in the state, are just more visible than other farmers.

Using Drones To Scout Almonds From Above

The DSS Swipe tool allows you to contrast color and vegetative health images. (Photo Credit: AeroVironment)

But it would still behoove the industry to reduce water use. Doing it by relying on aerial imagery would have the further advantage of helping to lessen growers’ reliance on hiring increasingly scarce workers.

“Ultimately we want to help farmers reduce their labor force, to get information from fields without sending out so many employees,” Alexandrou says.

No Boots On The Ground
Mark Dufau, AeroVironment Director of Sales, Commercial Information Solutions, says they will use the imagery taken by the drone and correlate that with the results of the soil moisture probes and pressure bombs to find out when the trees are truly being stressed.

“In the future, we believe you will be able to go ahead and skip irrigation even if the schedule says you should water today,” he says. “You can create the most efficient watering plan available without hurting yield.”

 

Far-sighted growers are already using such techniques on the ground to save water, but it means they have to take a lot of field measurements.

“This will reinvent the scouting industry because progressive growers can do what they’re doing now, but without putting their boots on the ground,” he says. “They can save on both inputs and water costs.”

As the technology improves, growers will be able to make more informed decisions through analyzing images. By measuring reflectance and other qualities, eventually, they hope to be able to determine not only water stress, but nutrient deficiency and disease state.

“Those are the big three,” Dufau says. “If we can see those three from the air, it changes agriculture.”

Illustrious History

Many growers are leery of new technology, as they have seen many new products launched with great fanfare, only to quietly disappear when grandiose claims fell well short of the mark. But besides the technology, there is a natural skepticism about the companies themselves. They often haven’t been around long, and are consequently unfamiliar.

Using Drones To Scout Almonds From Above

Pterosaur, a model for an IMAX film, displayed by inventor and company founder Dr. Paul MacCready. (Photo Credit: AeroVironment)

AeroVironment, the company partnering with California State University, Fresno, in a year-long study to determine what types of imagery and data almond growers need, might not be a household name. But it has been around for nearly half a century, notes Steven Gitlin, AeroVironment’s Vice President, Corporate Strategy, Communication and Investor Relations.

The company was founded in 1971 by Dr. Paul MacCready, a graduate of the prestigious California Institute of Technology, which is the academic home of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. An expert in aerodynamics, MacCready first came to worldwide attention when he invented the Gossamer Condor.

In 1977, he won the Kremer Prize when the Condor became the first aircraft to demonstrate human-powered, sustained, controlled flight. Gitlin says it was the first of seven MacCready/AeroVironment inventions to be displayed at the Smithsonian in Washington, DC, the world’s largest museum and research complex.

According to Gitlin, the other six creations include:

Using Drones To Scout Almonds From Above

Gossamer Albatross, the first human-powered aircraft to cross the English Channel. (Photo Credit: Don Monroe)

• The Gossamer Albatross, which in 1979 became the first fully human-powered aircraft to cross the English Channel. The 70-pound aircraft completed the 26-mile flight in 2 hours, 49 minutes, and clinched a second Kremer Prize for MacCready.

• By 1981, the AeroVironment team understood a human can generate about a third of 1 horsepower of energy. “Where to get more? How about the sun,” Gitlin says. That year the Challenger, a solar-powered airplane, flew 163 miles from France to England, reaching an altitude of 14,300 feet.

• In 1985, AeroVironment was asked by the producers of an IMAX film to recreate one of the largest known flying creatures of all time, Quetzalcoatlus northropi. They built the pterosaur model with a 36-foot wingspan, and in 1986, the IMAX movie “On The Wing” was released. “The head of the model acts like a tail on a conventional aircraft,” Gitlin says.

Using Drones To Scout Almonds From Above

Sunraycer, the winner of the first solar-powered car race, crossing Australia 2.5 days ahead of rivals. (Photo Credit: AeroVironment)

• While working on solar-powered aircraft, AeroVironment was approached by General Motors to help design a vehicle to enter the first solar-powered car race. The company designed and led the development of the Sunraycer. In 1987, the GM Sunraycer won the 1,864-mile solar car race across Australia in 4.5 days, 2.5 days ahead of the nearest competitor.

“GM was so pleased that MacCready and AeroVironment were hired to design and lead the development of the GM Impact, the first modern electric car and prototype for the EV1, which debuted at L.A. Auto Show in 1990,” Gitlin says. “Now we’re one of the leading suppliers of charging solutions to electric vehicle drivers and automakers.”

 

Using Drones To Scout Almonds From Above

Pathfinder Plus, covered with photovoltaic cells, soared to 80,201 feet. (Photo Credit: AeroVironment)

• By 1998, AeroVironment had been working on drones for the U.S. military for more than 10 years. They were also working with NASA on a program to develop drones that could fly at extreme altitudes and for extended durations. That same year, the Pathfinder Plus, a 121-foot long flying wing that was covered with photovoltaic cells, flew higher than any other such aircraft, soaring to 80,201 feet. “Pathfinder Plus became the sixth of our vehicles acquired by Smithsonian,” Gitlin says.

• In 2003 the U. S. Marine Corps selected AeroVironment from a field of competitors to build the first high-volume production small unmanned aircraft system, the Dragon Eye. Employed by Marines on the front line, Dragon Eye was a backpack-able reconnaissance system that delivered real-time information to its operator in harsh combat environments.

For the first time, Marines heading into harm’s way carried their own tool for situational awareness within several kilometers, a capability that has saved countless lives and led to AeroVironment’s production of the Raven, Puma and Wasp unmanned aircraft systems that now support all branches of the U.S. Department of Defense and more than 35 allied forces.

Using Drones To Scout Almonds From Above

Dragon Eye, the first such aircraft built for the U.S. Marine Corps. (Photo Credit: WPN)

Today, Gitlin says the company produces 85% of the 10,000-plus drones used by U.S. military.

“Ours are the smallest, most portable and have the lowest cost,” he says. “They have to be practical, reliable, and easy to use, giving users the info they need to achieve better outcomes, to proceed with certainty.”

AeroVironment has been working in agriculture for several years, Gitlin says. They have been taking their time, in part because it has taken time for Federal Aviation Administration regulations to evolve to allow drones to meet growers’ needs.

They have been working closely with Ag’s early adopters, understanding the unique needs of this industry and considering their specific demands.

For example, what is the information they need? How does it have to be delivered to them to be of use to them? AeroVironment is used to answering tough questions, Gitlin says.

“If the U.S. military trusts us to keep our troops safe,” he says, “growers can trust us too.”

Half Helicopter/Half Airplane

AeroVironment will soon begin selling its newest aircraft, the Quantix drone, along with its Decision Support System. The Quantix is unusual in that it’s a hybrid, combining the vertical takeoff and landing advantages of multirotors with the range, speed and efficiency benefits of fixed-wing aircraft.

Mark Dufau, AeroVironment Director of Sales, Information Solutions, says the Quantix will revolutionize the market.

“Today there are two type of drone platforms, the quad copter and the fixed wing. The Quantix combines the two platforms to create a drone that automatically takes off and lands vertically in the same location, and as it rises it transitions into fixed wing flight to scan over 400 acres in 45 minutes,” he says. “It’s really designed to be used as a precision agriculture tool; many of the available competitive platforms are actually toys that are trying to be commercial units.”

It’s also meant to be used by growers and crop advisors; you don’t need to be a pilot to operate it.

Using Drones To Scout Almonds From Above

The Quantix is an unusually versatile drone. (Photo Credit: AeroVironment)

“There’s nothing special you have to do with this drone. Once we do the initial setup, you take it out of box and designate where to fly with your finger on a tablet,” he says.

Upon landing, you take the SD card out of the drone, put it in your tablet, and you have immediate access to imagery, Dufau says. You can see anomalies in the field, and take care of any potential problems.

For example, it you see a hot spot, you can walk to that area and do ground truthing. Then you can drop a pin there and leave note saying looks like it might be leafroller, and that you’re taking a sample to the lab.

Finally, the AeroVironment Decision Support System is a full-service, cloud-based data analytics platform, incorporating a high-level of automation plus leading agronomic research and algorithms to deliver actionable insights.

AeroVironment will return fully stitched imagery of even the largest ranches in 24 hours, Dufau says.

“The only trick is uploading 30 gigabytes of data,” he says. “That can create a bottleneck in some rural areas, based on their broadband speeds.”

The system is designed to immediately identify problems and take action, making it more attractive to growers who’ve so far been sitting on the sidelines as technology has come into play.

“If you just want to put the Quantix in the air, collect the information and go on with your day, that’s great, ease of use is the goal,” Dufau says.

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