Welcome Inspire Pilots!
Join our free DJI Inspire community today!
Sign up

Agricultural Opportunities

I just wanted to give an update to this thread. I found great success targeting seed producers this year. The work was short-term, mainly just prior to harvest, but the market is there. The profit per acre isn't quite high enough on the individual farmer level.


Sent from my iPhone using InspirePilots

How do you go about finding these opportunities? Do you already have a set of contacts in the agricultural community, or do you just find a listing of local farmers and start calling them?
 
I had contacts in the industry. I would recommend contacting your local ag office. You might offer to do some free work for their research. At this point this is all still relatively new so if you are able to provide value to them, they will spread the word.


Sent from my iPhone using InspirePilots
 
guys, can you just clarify what Biz said earlier, SlantRange works with Pix4D? Will it work with DroneDeploy? Currently looking at modding an X3 to NDVI, but might be able to swing for the SlantRange p2 if i don't have to fork out for the $4000+ per year licence fee too! Any help appreciated.

I have attempted to use SlantRange through pix4d and DD it's not easy to do but can be done. I just started up the Slantview subscription today so will let you know how that works compared to pix and dd. The problem or at least the trouble with SlantRange vs your x3 is that the individual photo isn't tagged. SlantRange actually creates a log file which I have exported to excel and manipulated to get the geo info on the right image.

This doesn't work all the time, but well enough to get data. If you want to use pix4d or dronedeploy then stick with the x3 or maybe the sequoia (never used it). I know the x3/z3 play nice with software.
 
Sensefly RTK:

I have a couple orders where I am flying near a 1,000 acres and the client (non-ag) wants 3d imagery of the field plus elevation data. So I have been considering an upgrade in platform from the m100 to a fixed wing to cover jobs like this. Has anyone used the Sensefly RTK or precisionhawk? They are super expensive, but I could cover a job in an hour or two with those instead of the calculated 12 or so with the m100.
 
I am thinking of the Slantrange 3p but how would it mount to an inspire seeing as it would need to be hard mounted. Would that not cause vibration and blurry images?
 
I was looking at the Parrot Sequoia the other day and if you search for Inspire mounts for that there is one that comes with a gimble which mounts on the back of the rig, still space for RGB camera at the front. Plus it shoves a mount above to hold the IR sensor too.
 
I was looking at the Parrot Sequoia the other day and if you search for Inspire mounts for that there is one that comes with a gimble which mounts on the back of the rig, still space for RGB camera at the front. Plus it shoves a mount above to hold the IR sensor too.

My point being that they may make one for the SlantRange or at least retrofit. Other option is to get a mate to 3D print something.
 
I think the benefit of doing this service would be drastically helped with those who have like an underground aquifer or able to water in some way. If they have the ability for example to irrigate the corn in late July when it is hot adjustments can be made other than mother nature to help aid problematic areas which might suffer greatly. The whole workflow of problem, and solution has to be clear. At least to me I see little value to someone who only gets from our work a better google maps. Maybe I am missing something here, but living in a state without much irrigation at all I went past this segment of the industry unless better problem solution ratios come up.

-C
 
I think the benefit of doing this service would be drastically helped with those who have like an underground aquifer or able to water in some way. If they have the ability for example to irrigate the corn in late July when it is hot adjustments can be made other than mother nature to help aid problematic areas which might suffer greatly. The whole workflow of problem, and solution has to be clear. At least to me I see little value to someone who only gets from our work a better google maps. Maybe I am missing something here, but living in a state without much irrigation at all I went past this segment of the industry unless better problem solution ratios come up.

-C
o_O
 
This may sound fairly...dumb but how are you selling clients on this server? I recently picked up an Inspire 1 w/ the x3 and I am surrounded by farming towns and want to help my local growers but I would love to learn more on how to properly word what exactly something like Drone Deploy does. Is it simply using RGB color scale to determine the amount of green in the image allowing them more targeted areas to focus their efforts on?
 
Hi,

in any case if you want to buy one of them get the sunshine sensor version. Its an absolute MUST have if you want to make correct measurments. I work with pix4d for quite some time, its a really great software, highly automated and very easy to use.

I dont have slantrange - but they promise that you need only 20% overlap (compared to the 80% - industry standard) if you use their software. It sounds unbelievable, but it might be true. maybe too good to be true.

You can export geotiff with pix4d, it does it automatically after you proces all the data. You might try agisoft photoscan, its a very good soft it can export to any format, but not that user friendly.

Its too bad that there are not enought guys considering the usage of drones in agriculture. It has a future, and I'd love if we could get together and share our know-how.

Csaba

I'm in the UK and my father is a well respected agronomist of over 40 years.
Am in talks with his company about using my Inspire Pro with either a Santrange or sequioa to do NDVI mapping on farms a cross east Anglia. I too think there is a large scope for this work and hope I can convince them to give me a contract to do it.
Dave
 
How are any of you even managing to get agricultural work? Here in the UK i have seen time after time people not been interested at all unless you are a qualified agronomist full stop. We have a basic system running a external gps trackers and camera on the i1 but we only use it for conservation work.
 
How are any of you even managing to get agricultural work? Here in the UK i have seen time after time people not been interested at all unless you are a qualified agronomist full stop. We have a basic system running a external gps trackers and camera on the i1 but we only use it for conservation work.
My father is a top agronomist so am hoping to land a contract with their multi million pound company. Fingers crossed !@
 
Nope true as the earth is round...
They're thinking about the whole process at the moment. It's not farmers u need to approach its agricultural companies who then speak to and work with farmers
Dave
Agronomists will utilize the data and prescribe chemicals and seed dressings from the results hopefully
 
Agronomists will utilize the data and prescribe chemicals and seed dressings from the results hopefully
Easier than walking fields and alsp NDVI is able to detect weeds such as blackgrass is early.ppst emergence crops where as visual walkabouts are hard to do when looking for tiny weeds
 

New Posts

Members online

No members online now.

Forum statistics

Threads
22,273
Messages
210,620
Members
34,250
Latest member
Nickolas74