To date, only pesticides registered for use with drones — often called remotely piloted aircraft systems (RPAS) — can legally be applied by drones. Almost none are registered for drone application.

WHY IT MATTERS: The proposed regulations would make many existing pesticides available for application by drone. To date, almost no products have been made available for legal application by drone — though anecdotal evidence suggests drone application is happening on the down low.

Health Canada’s Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA) proposes to allow currently registered products, where the label permits aerial application — that is, by fixed wing or rotary aircraft — to be applied by drone.

Applicators would need to comply with all the label directions for aerial application, including spray volume, application rate, droplet size, treatment interval and spray buffer zones.

When used according to aerial application instructions, the PMRA said, drone application is not expected to impact the value of the pesticide being applied.

Based on data from global studies, spray drift with drone application is similar to ground application. Spray buffer zones established for conventionally-piloted rotary wing aircraft will be adequate. The PMRA also said pesticide residues on food crops are not higher than with conventional applications.

The PMRA said there isn’t enough data for a full risk assessment on safety risks of operators exposure to pesticides; however, it says available evidence suggests it’s “unlikely to be higher than with conventional equipment” — particularly because tasks such as mixing, loading and application must be done by different people, just as with other aerial spraying.

Consultations opened on Feb. 23 and close March 25.

Drone pilots would still require the relevant licenses from Transport Canada.

PMRA passes five-year mark on regulation studies

The PMRA began studying drone regulations in 2019. In September, members of the federal standing committee on agriculture asked the PMRA’s senior director general Frédéric Bissonette what was taking so long.

Bissonette cited scientific issues — for example, that a drone did not behave the same as an airplane — and pledged to have “something in place for next year.”

“Canada seems to be kind of falling behind other jurisdictions in terms of allowing this type of use,” CropLife Canada CEO Pierre Petelle told Glacier FarmMedia in late 2025.

“With these products being used in many other western-type jurisdictions … there should be ways of coming to conclusions much quicker than we have,” he added.

Crop protection companies, meanwhile, have been conducting studies to collect drone-specific data for their products.

Anecdotal evidence suggested farmers were using already drones to apply pesticides on the down low.

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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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“It basically takes a traditional sprayer and increases its capacity by 25 or 30 per cent, because we can make it fill so fast. That’s been our big thing. (Demand) is rapidly growing.”

The company has now designed a trailer intended to cater to the emerging trend of handling broad-acre spraying with drones, bringing efficiencies to that operation as well.

Friesen says he believes drone spraying will soon become one of the fastest-growing segments in the ag equipment sector, citing the fact two of today’s large application drones working together can keep up with a standard field sprayer.

“Now, we’re getting into the drone industry as well,” he says. “Our first production trailers are just coming off the line now.

“This trailer will replace what a typical ground sprayer will do in acres per hour. We’ve built the infrastructure to support those drones. We have a whole lineup of drone stuff coming.

“I actually expect this (Dash trailers) to be our largest product line in the years to come.”

PhiBer has seen steadily increasing demand for its Dash trailers, earth-moving products and hay tools in the past few years. As a result, the company has embarked on an ambitious building project, adding a 60,000-square foot production facility to its current manufacturing footprint at Crystal City, Man., about 130 km southwest of Portage la Prairie.

PhiBer will also roughly double its workforce once the new building is completed.

“We’ve been going through extreme growth in the last number of years,” he says. “I think our four-year average is 48 per cent growth year over year.”

Depending on the configuration, a Dash trailer can carry different sizes of plastic product tanks, which PhiBer currently imports from the U.S. However, the new facility will be home to a very large plastic molding system, which is capable of forming tanks of up to 5,000 gallons for installation on Dash trailers, as well as forming even larger permanent on-site storage tanks.

“There are only two machines in Canada that are big enough to do what we need,” Friesen says. “Right now it’s all being done in the States, and we want to bring it back to Canada. So the largest machine in Canada will be here.”

The new building will also house three automated laser parts-cutting systems to speed up manufacturing.

PhiBer has chosen to market its equipment direct to farmers instead of retailing through a dealer network. That, Friesen says, helps the company keep sticker prices as low as possible, cutting out the middleman.

To handle sales, the company has setup a new AI-assisted website that will allow interested farmers to configure a Dash tender trailer with exactly the right setup to meet their needs.

“One of the unique things is we go direct to customers with our products, aside from the hay tools which are sold through OEM channels,” Friesen says. “We have an online presence. We’ve now launched a digital platform where people can get a quote and build a trailer in the system and place their order, buying parts — it’s all done through e-commerce if they want.

“We’re not trying to replace people but create a tool to connect with people. Guys can create and design an entire trailer system themselves online. They can build their dream system. There are over 3.5 million ways we can configure a Dash trailer. It’s all very customizable.”

Customers can also contact the company directly by phone for assistance in designing a Dash if they prefer.

The Dash trailer system has become PhiBer’s keystone product, and with increasing demand the company has now set up companies in the U.S. and Australia to keep up with international sales. Those foreign sales are key to PhiBer’s expansion.

“We’ve been selling into the U.S. for a number of years, and it remains a big part of our market,” he says. “It’s our No. 1 growth opportunity despite some of the political challenges.”

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International regulations are a complex web for Canadian producers, speakers on a late-July Keep It Clean webinar warned.

“When you think about the different crops that are represented, our major field crops, canola, our cereals and our pulses, a large proportion of those are exported,” noted Krista Zuzak, director of crop protection and production for Cereals Canada.

WHY IT MATTERS: Failing to follow the pesticide label or pre-harvest application windows sets farmers up for marketing issues and also risks Canada’s international trade reputation.

This export dependency means farmers must consider regulations beyond Canada’s borders, Zuzak added.

“Countries do have the right to set their standards and their rules that are around human and plant animal or environmental health,” she said.

Glufosinate-ammonium is a prime example, said Jeff English, vice-president of marketing and communications at Pulse Canada. While glufosinate-ammonium has generic registration for lentils in Western Canada, it shouldn’t be used due to misaligned and unset maximum residue limits, he warned.

Even glyphosate, widely used for pre-harvest weed control, carries market risks.

“We do have MRLs established in all major markets,” English said. However, the product is still flagged for caution because market acceptance varies based on end users.

Technology innovation meets trade reality

The disconnect between domestic approvals and international acceptance extends to new technologies. Zuzak pointed to spray drones as an example of innovation constrained by market considerations.

“While there are a lot of advancements in research happening around this technology, spray drones cannot yet be used to apply pesticides on field crops in Canada,” she said. “Currently, there aren’t any agriculture field crop chemicals or pesticides that have labels right now that authorize spray drone use.”

Applying via drone, besides being illegal, is thus also considered an off-label use and could pose a market risk.

Daily decisions carry global consequences

The complexity translates into detailed operational requirements for farmers.

Curtis Rempel, vice-president of crop production and innovation at the Canola Council of Canada, said that careful precision is required for glyphosate applications on canola.

“For canola staging, because of the indeterminate nature of the crop, it can be a little tricky, but we have enough research, and I think, enough visual guidelines now to really indicate that 30 per cent moisture is 50 to 60 per cent seed color change,” he said.

Farmers must also consider disease management for trade purposes.

Market-driven precaution

So far, the industry has adopted a precautionary approach where even legal products may be restricted based on market concerns rather than safety issues.

“We have our product advisory … which is annually updated, as well as our pre-harvest glyphosate staging guides and our pre harvest interval calculator,” Zuzak said.

The importance of farmer-buyer communication can’t be overstated, English said.

“We always recommend talking to your grain buyer before application, just to confirm as a fail safe.”

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Wolf, who has 35 years of experience in the spraying business and uses @nozzleguy as his X (Twitter) handle, spent most of his 40-minute talk on the “cons” of spraying with drones.

He’s concerned about the risk of drift from drones and explained, with supporting data, that it’s difficult to get a consistent swath, or spray, width from a drone.

The focus on “cons” prompted a comment from a person in the audience at CropConnect, a crop industry conference held Feb. 12-13 in Winnipeg.

“The title of this presentation was The Pros and Cons of Drone Spraying, but I didn’t hear the first part,” the audience member said.

The comment provoked a smile from Wolf, who admitted that some farmers are seeing value from spraying crops with drones.

Wolf, who hosts and writes for the world’s No. 1 sprayer website, Sprayers101.com, has spoken with Canadian growers to understand why they like the technology.

“They say no tracks (on the field) and no big bill from my aerial applicator … and I got my fungicide sprayed,” Wolf said.

“There is a logistical reason that these things are popular.”

READ MORE: Don’t hold your breath for a drone sprayer

However, farmers who are happy with drone spraying probably don’t have data on the efficacy of the technology, he said. They don’t really know if it’s better or worse than aerial spraying or using a self-propelled sprayer.

“Let’s go back to the initial question I posed: is this (drone spraying) making things better?” Wolf said.

“That’s really the question.”

Swath width

At CropConnect, Wolf explained that a spraying technologies are evaluated on four criteria: productivity, water volume, spray quality and deposit uniformity.

“Water volume and droplet size are the coverage part of the equation,” he said. “Deposit uniformity is just the overall quality. Are we doing the same thing on the left, middle and right side of the spray swath, for example.”

Wolf and one of his research colleagues, Jason Deveau, have done experiments in Ontario to evaluate the consistent of drones for swath width and the uniformity of the application.

Deveau is an application technology specialist with Ontario Agriculture.

In an ideal world, as the sprayer or drone travels back and forth across a field, the spray width should be consistent.

“If you buy a 120’ sprayer boom, how wide is your swath? 120 feet,” Wolf said.

“If you buy a T50 drone, how wide is your swath? Nobody knows.”

To answer that question, Deveau and Wolf laid a strip of paper across a test field near Simcoe, Ont. and flew a spray drone over the strip.

The tank in the drone contained water with a dye, which becomes visible on the strip of paper.

Deveau used a device called the Swath Gobbler to scan the paper and measure the performance of the drone.

“We can get droplet number and droplet coverage out of it,” said Wolf, who showed the results of those tests in Winnipeg.

They found that swath width and deposit uniformity is highly inconsistent. It can change as the drone flies over the crop and vary greatly, in a few minutes of time.

The swath width depends on drone height, water volume, flying speed, side wind, headwind, downwind and other factors.

One set of data showed that a professional pilot, flying a drone at 3.0 m of height, 30 km per hour and delivering three gallons per acre, produced three different results in a short period of time:

• Repetition 1: swath width of 6.5 m (21 feet)

• Rep 2: 30 min later, 7.0 m (23 feet)

• Rep 3: 30 min later, 5.0 m (16 feet)

“We have variability, even within a short distance,” he said. “Do not just take someone’s word, that you have a 29-foot swath (width). The price of not having a 29-foot swath is striping.”

Striping is duplicating spray on the same strip of crop.

Wolf is also worried about the increased risk of drift, from spraying with a drone. Then, there’s the possibility of accidents with other aircrafts and injuries to humans.

A lack of regulations is another issue.

“Anyone, here, can buy a drone today and fly it this afternoon,” he said. “I think we’re playing with something that is inevitably going to go south.”

Looking forward

Wolf concluded his talk with some optimism on how the technology could evolve.

Right now, most of the spray drones on the market were developed in Asia for application on small farms. Those drones aren’t suited for a 9,000-acre grain farm in Saskatchewan. Canadian producers will need larger drones, specifically designed for broad-acreage crops.

Those drones are starting to enter the market, Wolf said.

“I would say we’re at the very beginning of the drone story for spraying.”

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What do you do? Igor de Albuquerque advises extreme caution.

“If the product in question does not include drone usage on its label, promoting or advising on its use could result in regulatory violations, leading to penalties from the Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA),” the forensic agrologist with the Saskatchewan Ministry of Agriculture wrote in an email.

Producers have been using drones, otherwise known as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or remotely piloted aircraft (RPA), for scouting, mapping and managing cattle on pasture. With the advent of drones capable of spraying crop protection products, some growers have tried it regardless of legality.

Only four products have so far received agency approval for application using drones and none are directly related to agriculture. Garlon XRT herbicide controls vegetation in non-crop scenarios and the others are larvicides for mosquito control.

This effectively makes it illegal to spray any ag pesticide by drone and there are fines up to $10,000 from the PMRA for those who do so.

Liability is another risk, said de Albuquerque.

“Agronomists could face liability issues depending on their contract or agreement with the grower, especially if they work for a retailer, which might be viewed as advertising a product in violation of regulations.

“Such situations should be addressed by the appropriate licensing body, such as the Saskatchewan Institute of Agrologists.”

However, this may be a moot point. Unless an agrologist has the necessary training, the easiest thing to tell inquiring producers is that they’re not qualified. Transport Canada sets the requirements for instruction on spraying with drones and among them is years-long experience.

Specific penalties for agrologists who show farmers the ropes of drone application are hard to pin down, even for those as close to the subject as Ross Breckels, a senior scientific evaluator with the PMRA who chairs the department’s internal RPA working group.

“If an agronomist or a non-applicator advises an applicator to spray a pesticide when drones aren’t on the label, I guess it would be hard to penalize them, but maybe they would get their wrist slapped and have the talking to. But I don’t think there’ll be a monetary penalty involved.”

Markus Weber is a central Alberta professional agrologist and drone salesperson. He holds drone spraying clinics to help students get a feel for these aircraft: how to use them, calibrate them and measure the results of application. Students get into the field for spraying instruction, he said, but not with pesticides.

“We actually have them using the tool to create missions, to accurately hit targets, to calibrate, but it’s all with water in the tank. We don’t teach them how to use the pesticides. We teach them how to use the drone spraying tool or drone spreading tool for granular products.”

Weber teaches his students how to physically operate a drone and about the risks and regulations from the PMRA and Transport Canada, which oversees the aircraft-based regulations.

“We have an hour, hour and a half, on all the regulatory aspects of doing this and that includes aviation regulations as much as it includes pesticide regulations,” he said.

“When I teach people how to use a drone for spraying, I teach them how to use it generally for spraying and if they are going to use it for spraying pesticides off-label, they know that what they’re doing is off-label and what the legal status of that is.”

RPA have their share of advocates and skeptics. In an interview earlier this year, Tom Wolf, owner of Agrimetrix Research and Training and a go-to sprayer guru, outlined some of the risks.

Because drones have smaller tanks and lower water volumes than other aircraft, spray droplets tend to be very fine and run the risk of going off-target, creating potential for spray drift, he said.

“The drones, by necessity, will be spraying low water volumes. A ground sprayer will be spraying five to 10 U.S. gallons for herbicides. The drones will likely be spraying two (gallons).

“These drones are somewhat limited in what droplet size you can produce. You will have to produce a smaller droplet in order to get adequate coverage with lower water volumes.

“I don’t see a way around that. You don’t have that coarse or very coarse or even extremely coarse spray categories available to you for low water volume drone spraying.”

Weber does not agree. Even if he did, leading RPA manufacturers such as DJI, XAG and Hylio are already manufacturing droplet-adjusting drones that create less drift-susceptible droplets.

“Historically, most spraying has been done with a flat fan nozzle. And the basic principle is you have high-pressure water going through a small hole and that hole atomizes, it meters, and it creates some kind of a shape: a flat fan, typically.”

Modern spray drones feature three components that enable application: the atomizer; pumps that do the metering; and propellers that create the “fan” or deposition size using downward pressure. Droplet sizes can be adjusted.

“A drone operator is able to change droplet size from as low as 50 or 100 microns — extremely drift-prone droplets but in some cases necessary, say, for an orchard where you’re trying to penetrate a canopy for insect control. In those cases, some really fine droplets are called for,” said Weber.

“And then in situations where you have higher winds and you need to control drift in more of a typical Western Canada field scenario, then the larger droplet size makes sense, and that one tool lets you do all of that.”

Weber said more research is needed on how propellers distribute droplets to create less drift. However, he argues that drift from drones is no worse than what’s created by manned aircraft, which some producers legally hire for spray operations.

“The biggest benefit of drones is that they have downdraft,” he said. “Those propellers are largely pushing air down, but they’re also pushing those droplets down towards the ground and that reduces their dwell time in the air, improves coverage on the plant, improves canopy penetration. So that propeller is actually a big part of why these drones will have such great benefit.”

Four categories must be satisfied before the PMRA makes an on-label decision for a pesticide and its method of application: drift, efficacy, maximum residue limits and operator and bystander exposure.

The PMRA itself doesn’t collect this data, instead counting on chemical companies to submit pesticides for on-label drone use based on their research. Some, including Breckels, have in the past suggested there isn’t a lot of activity on that aspect.

However, Breckels is more optimistic today, thanks to research conducted around the world. Probably the biggest example is the work of the Unmanned Aerial Pesticide Application System Task Force.

It is a consortium of eight ag chemical companies that formed in 2021 to generate drone-spraying data on off-site movement, operator/handler exposure and human dietary exposure for regulatory authorities around the world.

The eight companies include BASF, Bayer CropScience, Corteva AgriScience, FMC, Gowan, NuFarm, Syngenta and Valent.

The results could bring good news for farmers who want to use drones for pesticide application, said Breckels.

“They have been conducting worldwide drift trials in 2023 and some are still ongoing in 2024. They are going to submit their data to the PMRA sometime this fall as well. So we should have some data coming in, which hopefully is useful and will help in getting more drones on the labels once the applications come in.”

Breckels also noted a presentation at the American Chemical Society conference in August that hinted at “encouraging” preliminary results from residue trials.

“They’re hopefully going to provide the PMRA with the data from those results in the coming months.”

The task force has an annual budget of about $4 million per year.

“It’s not an insignificant amount of money that they’re putting into this, so obviously there is a lot of interest from chemical registrants.”

The popularity of spray drones, once common ag pesticides are registered, is another matter, said Breckels. They won’t likely replace ground sprayers or manned aircraft as application methods.

“They’ll work in conjunction with them, so the pesticide companies would still get their revenue from field sprayers and air applicators.”

Weber says the first ag products approved for drones will likely be fungicides and chemicals for various niche uses.

“That’s been proven true with Garlon XRT,” he said.

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Ross Breckels, a senior scientific evaluator with Health Canada’s Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA), said the process of getting common pesticides “on-label” for use by drone is coming along faster than he expected a year ago.

Four requirements must be satisfied before the agency makes an on-label decision for a pesticide and, in this case, its method of application. Those include drift risk, efficacy, maximum residue limits and impacts of operator and bystander exposure. It’s up to chemical companies to submit pesticides for on-label drone use and make a case for their safety, Canadian authorities have said.

Some — including Breckels — previously suggested there hasn’t been a lot of activity in that domain.

He’s more optimistic today, thanks to research being conducted around the world.

Perhaps the biggest example of that work is the Unmanned Aerial Pesticide Application System Task Force. That’s a group of eight agricultural chemical companies generating drone-spraying data on off-site movement, operator/handler exposure and human dietary exposure for regulatory authorities around the world. The task force has an annual multimillion-dollar budget.

Breckels takes the number of zeros in that figure as a sign that major chemical companies are taking the file seriously.

“It’s not an insignificant amount of money that they’re putting into this. So, obviously there is a lot of interest from chemical registrants,” he said.

Companies involved in that initiative include BASF, Bayer CropScience, Corteva Agriscience, FMC, Gowan, NuFarm, Syngenta and Valent.

Results coming out of the task force might mean good news for farmers hoping to use drones for pesticide application, said Breckels.

“They have been conducting worldwide drift trials in 2023 and some are still ongoing in 2024. They are going to submit their data to the PMRA sometime this fall as well.”

Breckels also pointed to a presentation at the American Chemical Society conference in August, which hinted at “encouraging” preliminary results from residue trials.

“They’re hopefully going to provide the PMRA with the data from those results in the coming months.”

To date, only four chemical products have received PMRA approval for drone application — none directly related to agriculture. Garlon XRT herbicide was approved for industrial use this summer, while the others are larvicides for mosquito control.

This effectively makes the spraying of any ag pesticide by drone illegal, with fines of up to $10,000.

Drops and drifts

Drones have their share of advocates and skeptics. In an interview earlier this year, spray expert Tom Wolf cautioned that their smaller tanks and lower water volumes translate to very fine spray droplets which have more risk of going off-target.

Markus Weber, a central Alberta drone salesperson and instructor, does not agree with that assessment. He cited leading spray drone manufacturers such as DJI, XAG and Hylio that are already manufacturing drones capable of adjusting droplet size.

“A drone operator is able to change droplet size from as low as 50 or 100 microns — extremely drift-prone droplets but in some cases necessary, say, for an orchard where you’re trying to penetrate a canopy for insect control. In those cases, some really fine droplets are called for.

“And then, in situations where you have higher winds and you need to control drift in more of a typical Western Canada field scenario, then the larger droplet size makes sense, and that one tool lets you do all of that.”

Weber says the first ag products approved for drones will likely be fungicides and chemicals for various niche uses. “That’s been proven true with Garlon XRT,” he said.

How popular spray drones will be once common ag pesticides are registered is another matter, said Breckels, adding they won’t likely replace ground sprayers or manned aircraft as application methods.

“They’ll work in conjunction with them, so the pesticide companies would still get their revenue from field sprayers and air applicators.”

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The advent of drone technology has ushered in a new age in aerial spraying. Today, the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) market is dominated by battery-powered rotary and fixed-wing drones, but there’s a brand-new player emerging that’s unlike any sprayer you’ve seen before.

Developed by Saskatchewan-based Precision AI, the Stratus AirSprayer has a unique “flexwing” design, similar to a paraglider.

The flexwing refers to a canopy or parachute, attached to a motorized spraying apparatus. The parachute not only provides the necessary lift for the gasoline-powered rig to carry heavy payloads but also enables it to travel at the slower speeds required for precision spraying applications.

“You can’t do any precision work if you’re flying at 100 miles an hour. It just isn’t possible,” says Daniel McCann, Precision AI’s founder and CEO.

The Stratus AirSprayer clocks in at just under 40 m.p.h. as it flies over crops four feet or so above the canopy. It can apply precise GPS-guided broadcast sprays in two interchangeable swath widths, one 18 feet (5.5 metres) wide and the other 30 feet (nine metres) wide.

A Generation Two version of the Stratus AirSprayer, which Precision AI plans to release soon, will feature green-on-green spot spraying technology developed with the use of artificial intelligence and advanced computer vision.

“This is actually the first time this has ever been done from an aerial applicator,” McCann says. “It is actually extremely challenging to develop an aerial platform that can carry a lot of liquid but also fly slow enough so it can be applied precisely. That’s not easy to do.

“We ended up hiring one of the top 10 aerospace guys in the United States (Andrew Streett, now Precision AI’s vice-president of engineering) to help solve this problem. He came up with this idea of using a parachute, which was a new concept that nobody really thought about before,” McCann says.

“It makes perfect sense. Even though it looks a little bit weird, it is probably the most efficient solution for big farms. We’re pretty pleased by it.”

McCann acknowledges the Precision AI team was a bit worried at first about how the UAV’s parachute would go over with farmers, given that it’s so different.

But he says that really hasn’t been a concern, once producers are shown how the Stratus AirSprayer works, and they can see how handling the parachute isn’t any harder than folding and unfolding a spray boom.

Bigger payloads

The drone’s distinctive design means it can carry heavier payloads and stay in the air much longer than other drone sprayers — something McCann maintains is a must for the large farm acreages found across Western Canada.

“We have engineered a really unique concept that can scale up to very large farms,” he says. “Spray drones are great if you have 40 acres of onions or something like that. But if you’ve got 10,000 acres of canola, good luck getting a small drone sprayer to cover that.”

The Stratus AirSprayer, which has a maximum payload capacity of payload of 833 pounds (378 kilograms), can carry 100 U.S. gallons (378 litres) of herbicide, fungicide or insecticide solutions — almost 20 times more than smaller ag drones, according to Precision AI.

The gas-powered AirSprayer can fly up to five hours before refueling, while “your typical spray drones, even the big ones, typically max out at about 10 minutes of air time, then you’ve got to swap batteries and refill it,” McCann says.

“A five-hour flight time means you don’t need fuel infrastructure on site. You might need to fill your spray tank, but you won’t need to refill the fuel.”

McCann says bigger payloads and longer flight times means more efficient spraying — there’s less downtime and more acres covered in a day — as well as substantial savings for farmers due to lower operating costs.

Precision AI maintains it costs less than $3 per acre to operate its UAV, a fraction of the cost of traditional drone technology, which it says ranges from $6 to $13 per acre.

McCann says tests have shown aerial spraying can also provide up to four per cent yield boost over ground applications, because there’s less compaction and crop trampling caused by heavy farm equipment.

He adds conventional ground sprayers also burn more fuel than the Stratus AirSprayer, requiring up to 10 times as much to cover the same number of acres. “You need a lot of gas to run your big iron sprayers.”

McCann maintains the Generation Two AirSprayer should save farmers more money, since its spot spraying system uses less chemicals.

Autonomous operation

The Stratus AirSprayer operates autonomously, both in its flying and spraying capacities.

“You basically upload your field boundaries, and it’ll synthesize a flight map and automatically fly over and spray the field for you. The operator on site just needs to babysit the off button, mostly,” McCann says.

The Canadian government hasn’t yet approved using drones like the Stratus AirSprayer for aerial applications of crop protectant products. Precision AI is on a committee to advise Canada’s Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA) on the necessary changes required to allow spraying from UAVs.

“At the end of the day, we’ve got the technology that can be used as an automated aerial sprayer,” McCann says. “It’s built out, and we just need to wait for the regulatory environment to catch up.”

McCann foresees a time when autonomous drones like the Stratus AirSprayer aren’t constrained by visual “line-of-sight” restrictions.

“When that happens, the AirSprayer theoretically could take off just from your farmyard, fly out to spray a field that might be 10 miles away, then fly home,” he says. “Then you don’t even need to have anybody on site, and that’s really where the power of the extended flight times becomes very powerful. But that’s going to take a few years to get to.”

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McCann adds initial regulation will likely require farmers to attain a drone pilot’s licence to run the AirSprayer — or they’ll need to find a licensed aerial applicator to do it.

“This is a limitation today. But again, we see that changing into beyond line-of-sight world where that won’t be necessary. It’s just not there yet today,” he says.

McCann also sees a day when the Stratus AirSprayer runs on electric power rather than gasoline, once drone batteries become more efficient and last longer before recharging.

“Battery technology continues to improve, but it’s just not good enough to cover big farms yet. But the minute that it does, an electrified future is absolutely plausible,” he says.

“The nice thing about the AirSprayer platform versus the other type of drones out there is it can carry a lot more weight because of that parachute. So, it could actually carry larger batteries that require less downtime, less charging time and so on when we get to that particular phase.”

Less spray drift

The Stratus AirSprayer rig weighs 700 lbs. (318 kg) and measures 3.25 metres (10 feet, eight inches) long, 2.1 metres (six feet, nine inches) wide and 2.25 metres (seven feet, five inches) high. The parachute is 541 square feet (50.3-metres) in size.

“The AirSprayer is actually a very big, heavy vehicle with a lot of inertia. It’s not like a little tiny drone that can get blown off course. If you’re carrying 100 gallons, as an example, you’re operating at about a 1,500-lb. takeoff weight and capacity. That inertia actually makes it less susceptible to wind than you think,” McCann says.

“What we’ve seen is that if you can spray, you can fly. There is a certain amount of wind speed where you just wouldn’t spray anyways, just from drift concerns and a variety of other reasons. So, that’s really the threshold we set for ourselves.”

McCann says the AirSprayer’s downward-facing propellers make it less likely to produce spray drift than rotary ag drones like quadcopters, which “push the spray down and then out to the sides. It’s really difficult to control the drift aspects of that when you’re spraying this way.”

The Stratus AirSprayer can take off from a farmer’s field as long as runway room of 350 to 500 feet (107 to 152 metres) is available. Once spraying is completed, the hardware can be loaded onto a flatbed truck or a 12-foot (3.65-metre) trailer, and the parachute folded and packed up into an easy-to-carry travel bag.

McCann says even with its high-tech capabilities, the AirSprayer isn’t difficult to operate and maintain, adding to its appeal to farmers.

“It’s been designed with the way farmers most typically work, which is give them something that’s easily fixable and that is easily transportable and that doesn’t require a whole lot of storage or maintenance. That’s what we built,” he says.

“I come from a farming family, and most of our team does as well. We understand how this type of thing works. You get your early adopters to try it out, and the minute that they see the results from it, they’re going to tell five of their friends, and they’ll be a great reference for us. That’s kind of how we expect to grow this.”

Value proposition

Janay Meisser, director of innovation for ag co-operative United Farmers of Alberta (UFA), had an opportunity to witness the Stratus AirSprayer in action during Precision AI field testing in New Mexico in May. “I think they’ve got something really special,” she says.

Meisser views the AirSprayer as a good value proposition, both in terms of productivity and return on investment. She also sees it as a very practical solution for farmers looking to get the most out of their crops.

“The Precision AI team is really connected to the farming community and are trying to build solutions for farmers with farmers. I think they’re solving problems that matter,” says Meisser.

“There are a lot of things that make the Stratus AirSprayer unique (and) I think they just got down to brass tacks to determine, what does this (machine) really need to do?” she adds.

“I think it will change how the farming community starts to think about managing crops. It’s going to shift some mindsets.”

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Smaller drones designed for surveying, and crop/livestock monitoring are already a tool in many farmers’ toolboxes, but the larger spray drones are also becoming more practical in a Prairie context.

“With the spraying we’re doing on canola and other crops, we’re losing too much money on tracks, and it’s getting costly for airplanes and helicopters,” said Dwayne Bacon, a farmer from Kinistino, Sask. attending the event.

“This will be a new thing for farmers to get into,” he added.

The spray drones on display had the capacity to cover 40 to 50 acres per hour. However, while the technology is there, regulatory approval for the applications of most interest to farmers is lacking.

“The regulations are running behind the technology… which puts farmers in a tough position,” said David Koop, chief operating officer of Green Aero Tech.

Under the current Canadian regulations, spray drones are legally allowed to do such things as applying fertilizer and spreading seed, but no pesticides have regulatory approval from Health Canada’s Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA).

“It’s not allowed, but is it being done? Absolutely. And is it the primary interest? Absolutely,” said Markus Weber, president of Landview Drones. He expected the vast majority of spraying drones were being used for applying pest control products, desiccants and herbicides. “I realize that’s not currently considered legal by PMRA, but that is what most of the people buying spraying drones are doing.”

“There are definitely people being told that it is legal to apply on their own farm by vendors that are eager to sell these drones. That is not the case, the PMRA considers it equally illegal if you’re spraying on your own farm or spraying on someone else’s farm,” said Weber.

“There are people going in with their eyes closed, but there are also people going in with their eyes wide open and they don’t have another option,” said Weber, noting that small farmers often have no other choice for applying fungicide in-crop without a high clearance sprayer.

“It will be a year full of drama, and I’m looking forward to that drama because I think that’s what it will take in this business to get things to change,” said Weber.

“Many farmers don’t realize that spraying off label with a drone is considered illegal by PMRA, and I hope those aren’t the people that are prosecuted,” said Weber, noting he expected to see some enforcement in 2024 with heavy fines a possibility.

While approval for agricultural chemicals could be years away, there was a glimmer of hope when the PMRA approved the Garlon XRT brush-control herbicide for drone usage in just the past week.

“We look forward to when we’ve gone through the process and are able to do everything,” said Koop, adding “farming’s tough up here, and guys need every single edge they can get.”

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