The company skipped a few generations from its previous T50 model to address the specific needs of western Canadian farmers.

‘We went straight to the biggest drum. The reason for this is because Canada is unlike any other country, where we have a majority of our land here is all flat. It’s big, open and flat. Of course, we do have a lot of hilly coulees, and B.C. has orchards or small, irregular shaped fields,” said Loren Ginn, area development manger for Sky Drones Inc., a distributor of DJI Agriculture.

Equipped with a 100-litre tank, the drone supports workloads for spraying and granular spreading (150-litre capacity) and has a lift system with a stabilizer, capable of carrying an 80-kilogram payload. Its maximum capability is covering 82 acres per hour, travelling at 72 km/h.

“A lot of the pasture guys, they like to seed their alfalfa, or if they’re going to put down grass seed, you can get to an area with the drone that tractors and other pieces of equipment might struggle a little bit with,” said Ginn.

The drone’s speed should be slowed depending on what it’s being used for, he added.

For spreading, the T100 has a built-in auger system that helps in slightly rainy conditions by helping break up the fertilizer.

The auger system ensures more consistent and efficient granular spreading by mechanically processing the fertilizer before dispersal. This means that even if the fertilizer is slightly clumpy or damp, the auger can still effectively distribute it across the field.

Sky Drones recommends a speed of 30 km per hour, which is still 60 to 70 acres per hour to maximize efficiency and cut down on spray shadowing.

Spraying crops such as corn or potatoes that have a lot of foliage will require slower speeds to get the product underneath the canopy.

The drone can travel faster on cereals and pasture because they do not need as much fumigation.

“Everyone has seen planes and crop dusters, but they have booms that go straight up,” Ginn said.

The way these drones work is rather than having booms that go out and then fall in a straight line, they have atomized sprinklers on either side of the drone. So that way it’s able to spread it out, then it relies on the down wash off of the drone to push it into the canopy.”

The drone has a regular 13-metre spray width, he said.

Ginn said producers are often intimidated by drones, afraid they are not going to be able to operate them properly.

However, he said artificial general intelligence software means operators rarely have to fly the drone manually, as long as they know how to make maps, which is part of the company’s training.

Sky Drones conducts demonstrations similar to what it did at Riverview Ranch during the Innovation on the Range field day.

“We want (producers) to actually use it and make their money back year after year from each drone. There’s not much point in us selling them if people don’t use them and understand how they work.”

Non-recreational drones can be a pricey proposition, but funding is available for agriculture producers through the On-Farm Efficiency Program, said Sonja Shank, program co-ordinator for the Agricultural Research and Extension Council of Alberta.

It is a 50-50 cost share up to $150,000.

Along with drones used for secondary purposes such as agriculture, the program also covers cameras in imaging/mapping drones and the first year of subscription fees for technology.

According to the Alberta government’s web page for the program, applications for the program are closed for 2025 and will re-open in April .

“Keep these things in mind when you go into the fall and start planning,” Shank said.

“There are a lot of these little funding pieces out there that not everybody knows about. And if you’re in the know, you’re in the know.”

Innovation on the Range was organized by the Chinook Applied Research Association.

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The tenders are either a truck- or trailer-mounted system to act as landing pad, operator’s station and refill platform for large agricultural drones. Many of those tenders made their first appearance not only at the show but also in the Prairie marketplace.

The increase in interest in drones from those attending field demonstrations at AIM suggests farmers may be starting to see practical applications of the technology on their farms.

As well, the support tender is becoming seen as a key component in efficient on-farm drone use.

To highlight that fact, a drone tender won an Ag in Motion Innovation Award. It was chosen by judges who saw it as a new product likely to have a significant impact on farming. PhiBer Manufacturing of Crystal City, Man., claimed the award for its Dash drone tender trailer.

“It (drone use) is one of the fastest growing segments of agriculture right now,” PhiBer chief executive officer Derek Friesen said during a sod-turning ceremony at the company’s manufacturing plant in June.

“This (Dash tender) trailer will replace what a typical ground sprayer will do in acres per hour. We’ve built the infrastructure to support those drones.”

Along with the PhiBer Dash trailer, there were several other similar systems competing for attention from show goers, including another Manitoba-based company, Farm and Sky Tech Ltd.

“Over the course of the last six months, we came up with this design,” said Barry Walker, co-owner of Farm and Sky Tech Ltd. in Nepawa, Man.

Walker’s company was displaying its prototype design, which is made entirely of galvanized steel and intended to be mounted on a deck trailer. Unlike the PhiBer Dash, which is integrated with a trailer, the Farm and Sky tender is made to sit on an existing deck trailer.

Like the PhiBer, the Farm and Sky tender allows for the sidewalls to lift up hydraulically and provide a wide upper deck capable of handling multiple large drones.

It also offered a partly protected upper platform station for the drone pilots to stand. Walker said the company will likely make a few small changes from the original design it displayed at AIM.

“I don’t know if we’ll ever stop evolving as it exists right now,” he said.

“We know there are some changes coming for that very soon.”

The Farm and Sky tender is modular, built out of eight- to nine-foot sections, so it can be customized to meet the needs of a particular buyer as well as fit on to any size trailer a buyer wants to use.

“This is a unique design,” said Walker.

“You tell me what size of trailer you have and I’ll build it for you.”

Walker said the company was offering to sell the prototype model on display for $35,000.

For someone who wants a more manoeuvrable tender, Elev8 Drone Service from Creston, B.C., displayed its Sky Rig platform, which is designed to be mounted on a one-ton truck.

Company owner Peter Wall said the Sky Rig gives operators the ability to drive into tighter locations where a trailer tender may not be practical or used when a single drone is all that is required.

“For example, fence line or waterway spraying, or for us, orchard spraying. Very often, you can’t get in with a trailer. You can’t turn around or you don’t want to tramp over your field.”

The Sky Rig uses a metal box at the rear to house the drone. It can then be lifted up hydraulically to allow the drone to use an upper deck above the cab as a landing pad. A water tank is located in the truck bed, and a product tank goes up with the drone for easy access.

“You drive out to the location, lift up the box with the hydraulic power pack, you open the lid, get the drone out and you’re ready to fly,” he said.

“We build it all flexible with the farmer in mind. It fits in a short bed, long bed or flat deck. It’s very versatile.”

The Sky Rig retails for $35,000, and a customer could expect delivery in three to four weeks after placing an order, he added.

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Tractors, drills and carts used during spring seeding all offer options to get through saturated soils. Big decisions will need to be made to address pest control mid-season, in regards to rate, chemical and application method. Heavy precipitation in the fall also has its own impacts on equipment.

Traction

For the seeding tractor, there’s the great debate: tracks versus tires. Tracks offer less soil compaction, to which wet soils are more prone than dry soils, largely due to the fact that their pounds per square inch (p.s.i.) to the ground is always constant, whereas with tires, the p.s.i. can fluctuate depending on how the tire is inflated.

There are also tradeoffs to each option. Tracks come at a higher upfront cost, will require more maintenance down the road and require more horsepower to operate, but do offer better traction and less slippage, extremely important in wet conditions. Tires are cheaper upfront but also can become very costly if a large tire finds an antler shed in the wrong spot. A tractor with tires will also have an easier time getting out of a very sticky situation. The operator has the option to articulate the machine back and forth to get out of a deeper wet spot. Tires also have an advantage in that you can put on more than one. Duals, triples or super singles significantly help flotation and traction compared to standard singles.

Digging in

The air drill has many options to help deal with a wet spring. High-flotation tires on newer models help keep the whole machine from digging into soft spots; mudscrapers help shed built-up soil from the packer tire to ensure proper seed and fertilizer placement, while also protecting against mud from pushing into the tube when the row units lift out of the ground; and aftermarket mud-special openers will further help keep the system plug-free.

One interesting newer aftermarket option is the blockage prevention system from AirGuard, based out of Abbotsford, B.C. The system removes humidity — always prevalent with a high-moisture environment — from the product delivery system on the drill. This helps prevent fertilizer buildup inside the primary and secondary hoses to keep them clean and clear.

Sectional control will get a workout but proves its worth during years with an above-normal amount of turning. The great debate of tracks versus tires can also apply to the non-drive tires on an air cart, liquid caddy or anhydrous ammonia tank.

Driving hacks

How you operate the equipment in wet conditions differs as well. More moisture means more potholes to drive around, meaning the operator will have to take over from the autosteer. Although it can be painful to give up acres, it can save a lot of headache and potential trips out of the cab to leave a little extra room around these low spots. Making a wider turn is easier than crawling on the ground unplugging openers with a screwdriver. If it is on the extreme end of moisture conditions, it may even make sense to plan to seed the field in a certain pattern to avoid high-moisture areas immediately after filling the air cart when the weight is at its highest.

All of these aftermarket additions and management practices help combat the tough conditions one is up against during a spring where it just won’t stop raining.

Pesticide under precipitation

Areas of higher precipitation in the mid-growing season also call for different choices in sprayers. The biggest decision, if rain continually persists, is whether to use the more common self-propelled sprayer or call in an aerial applicator. Never mind the drawback of trampling of the self-propelled sprayer; leaving ruts and compaction behind will further impact yield for the current year, and potentially in years to follow. Such potential yield loss may be enough to pay the extra cost of an aerial applicator. The downside is that typically everybody in the affected region is in the same situation, and the custom applicator can become booked up — not ideal when spray timing is crucial for many chemicals.

During these high-moisture years, one can expect to spend less on herbicide as the crop canopy tends to out-compete the weeds, especially with an effective first-pass herbicide. The same can be said for insecticides, as pest insects tend to be less of a concern with more precipitation. On the flipside, fungicides tend to be applied more often than typically expected. More moisture deep in the crop canopy makes for an ideal micro-environment for disease to flourish. Diseases such as aphanomyces root rot can claim up to 70 per cent of potential yield in wet years with little to no management practices to counteract the infection. Toward the end of the growing season, the use of a desiccant can be expected, as the plant stand will have trouble drying down to an acceptable harvest moisture level.

Humid harvests

Excessive moisture during the harvest season presents its own set of problems. The tracks versus tires debate can also extend to the combine. All the same theories apply to this machine but as it serves a different purpose, some attributes may be more important than others.

Flotation may be the most important factor for the combine. With the header and a loaded hopper, there can be a significant amount of weight on the front axle of the machine. Better flotation on the front axle means it will dig less into a low spot. That said, the combine is the least used of the large machinery on a farm, compared to the working hours of a tractor or self-propelled sprayer. That makes the higher upfront cost of tracks less attractive than duals or super-single tires.

The same can be said for the grain cart. Although more common to see with tracks, mainly due to the perception of even weight distribution, the decision to go with tracks, duals or super-singles on the grain cart depends on the mindset of the individual farm. Once the crop has been harvested, moisture can play a big factor on how that crop is handled and stored. The hours put on a grain bagger can vary year-to-year, especially if grain is coming off tough. It’s a risky gamble to put wet grain in a bag for any amount of time.

To help with higher-moisture grain, a grain dryer would help bring that moisture down to an acceptable level. Many farms in northern areas have had grain dryers for a generation — but in recent years farmers in more southern regions have started to see the benefit. A year with substantial moisture in the fall will quickly make a producer realize the value of a grain dryer — not only having the ability to take off tough grain but also being able to start harvest earlier, simply to be able to cover more acres in the season, make a grain dryer an essential part of the farm operation. There is also the ever-looming risk of frost when a crop takes longer to mature due to a higher-moisture environment. Although it has happened many times, it is also less common to get an extremely wet fall compared to the rest of the growing season.

In years when the rain tap just won’t shut off, it’s not just the big equipment that’s affected. Having top-quality, appropriately sized and fully-intact tow straps on hand will usually help get a piece of equipment out of a sticky situation more than a time or two. It’s important to inspect tow straps after each use for wear and any signs of fatigue. And as always, never use chains.

Also, washing equipment has never been more important with the risk and spread of clubroot. Ideally, washing down each piece of equipment between each field will be the best way to prevent spread of the disease, but at the very minimum, washing the tires with a bleach solution can also lower the risk. If tough conditions do persist throughout the year and ruts are left behind, they will need to be repaired before next seeding season. Depending on the severity, a smaller disc or vertical tillage implement will be the best solution, even if it does mean an extra pass.

Ultimately, an abundance of precipitation during the growing season can change the equipment and how it’s used on a farm to help deal with the hand Mother Nature has dealt.

This situation always brings up another hot topic: which is worse, too dry or too wet? A small farmer outside Saskatoon once shared this knowledge: “I’d rather have it be too dry — even if there’s no crop out there. At least I can still get in the field to harvest what is there. Being too wet means I can’t even get in the field, and if I can, I might break something when I get stuck, and that costs money.”

I tend to find if a producer has dealt with more drought, they’d rather have a flood, and vice versa — but how you adjust your equipment to deal with the conditions is in your hands.

The post How non-stop rain affects your farm equipment appeared first on Grainews.

FieldWatch is a U.S.-based non-profit that runs DriftWatch, BeeCheck and FieldCheck — mapping tools designed to let farmers and pesticide applicators communicate about sensitive crop areas. Organic growers and beekeepers register locations voluntarily, and applicators check the maps before spraying.

It’s been available in Saskatchewan since 2012, and both Alberta and Manitoba launched the program this spring.

The expansion was funded by a mix of industry groups, including CropLife Canada, Manitoba Organics, the Manitoba Beekeepers Association, the Alberta Beekeepers Commission and Organic Alberta. To make it easier for both provinces to sign on, FieldWatch allowed Alberta and Manitoba to split the program’s $24,500 startup fee.

“Accidental spray incidents are surprisingly common and can have significant financial and mental health impacts on organic farmers,” says Tracey Smith of Organic Alberta. “If organic farmland is accidentally sprayed, the land loses organic status for three years.”

Marika Dewar-Norosky, executive director of Manitoba Organics, knows that reality firsthand. Her farm lost certification after being mistakenly sprayed.

“It wasn’t a matter of drift in that case; it was mixed coordinates,” Dewar-Norosky says. “They had the wrong land description.”

FieldWatch’s platforms integrate with GPS software already used by aerial applicators. They overlay sensitive sites, such as organic fields, directly onto the applicator’s screen.

“So it would show my farm in bright red to say, this is a sensitive area,” Dewar-Norosky says.

The program’s success will depend on the buy-in from applicators, but Dewar-Norosky is optimistic. When she was building support for the project, she called every commercial applicator in Manitoba. She said the responses were overwhelmingly positive. She was even able to secure a corporate sponsorship from Western Canadian Aerial, based at Franklin, Man. That sponsorship helped foot the bill for the initial startup cost.

“Everyone’s really excited to be involved. No one wants to spray a beehive or organic acres.”

The program is aimed at commercial applicators, which on the Prairies mostly means aerial spraying. “If you’re spraying your own field, you already know if your neighbours are organic,” Dewar-Norosky says.

Bob Walters, CEO of FieldWatch, says label requirements often dictate when and where applicators can spray. In some cases, labels even require checking a local registry for beehives or sensitive crops.

Applicators don’t need to be registered to use the maps; anyone can view them. Walters says that ease of access is intentional, to avoid creating bureaucratic hurdles.

“But beyond the legal side of it, most applicators really do care,” he says. “I’ve met very few, whether on the ground or in the air, who aren’t concerned about someone else’s livelihood. They want to do the right thing.”

Beekeeper reluctance

Connie Phillips, executive director of the Alberta Beekeepers Commission, says the risk of drift is well known among her members, especially those servicing hybrid canola seed fields in the province’s south.

“Every year since I’ve worked for the commission, it has been inevitable that bees and workers get sprayed by aerial sprayers. Not on purpose, of course,” Phillips says.

She said beekeepers want to see better co-ordination with sprayers, but concerns around revealing hive locations run deep. “It’s going to be slow. They don’t want others to know where their bees are.”

That reluctance is well known to Simon Lalonde, president of the Saskatchewan Beekeepers Development Corporation.

“You can zoom in and see exactly where all our bee yards are,” Lalonde says. “Some guys want to keep that private.”

The main concern is theft. But Lalonde says fears of theft are largely misplaced, citing just one example of hive theft in the last five years in Saskatchewan. That theft had nothing to do with FieldWatch; it turned out to be the beekeeper’s neighbour.

“The only person who steals a beehive is another beekeeper, and they already know where the yards are.”

Still, many beekeepers remain hesitant to join, and as a result, the Saskatchewan Beekeepers Development Corporation is seeing only 30-50 per cent uptake by beekeepers.

That low uptake is at least partially due to the government of Saskatchewan’s funding regulations. Unlike other provinces, where login-based privacy can be offered, Saskatchewan’s rules require the platform to be fully public. Lalonde believes that decision may have contributed to the slower uptake.

“If you give beekeepers a login and password and give applicators and sprayers their own login, then it would be better controlled. That might have convinced more people to sign up.”

Getting the word out

Walters grants that beekeepers’ reluctance to share their locations is a challenge across the entire network, but adds the painful truth is that secrecy increases the chance of being sprayed. However, the option to mark fields ‘private’ helps ease most of those concerns. In fact, Walters says, lack of awareness is probably a more significant barrier.

“No matter how hard we’ve tried and worked over the years — through the government, through the university, through associations — sometimes there’s just not an awareness that we even exist.”

Organizations in both Manitoba and Alberta are working to raise awareness, with outreach efforts ramping up now that the platform is officially live.

“Signing up is quick and easy if you have access to the internet,” Organic Alberta’s Smith says. “People without internet access can ask us for paper forms.”

Ultimately, the platform is about prevention, Walters says. Any time a chemical is sprayed, whether it’s in the backyard, or from a plane, that chemical can move.

“It’s that impact that we’re trying to minimize,” he says. “At the end of the day, it’s a communication tool — communicating what may be downwind or adjacent or nearby to where you’re spraying. It’s really an attempt to have people work together.”

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