Each new season brings the anticipation of unexpected challenges. This year, on top of the usual concerns, we’ve struggled with in-person meetings. Trusted advisers, including retailers, agronomists, and consultants, across the country may face new challenges with visiting growers in-person to discuss scouting and prescriptive recommendations.

Drone scouting solutions, like the Syngenta partnership with Sony’s Smart Agriculture Solution, are a revolutionary way that growers and their advisers are redefining field scouting. This innovative technology can scout an entire 120-acre field and process the imagery within 30 minutes, or roughly in the time it takes to brew and drink your cup of morning coffee. The imagery is readily accessible for trusted advisers to review and share with growers without physically walking the fields and without internet connectivity.

Image resolution down to a few inches per pixel, compared to many satellite imagery options that provide between 100-400 inches per pixel, allows agronomists to easily drill into specifics, plant by plant, and detect issues – whether that’s a pest wreaking havoc, weeds invading, or disease sweeping across a field. Drones can help maximize time and efficiency, point growers and their advisers directly to trouble spots, and enable advisers to provide more confident recommendations and foster healthier land stewardship.

1. Maximize Time and Efficiency

Crop scouting has been an integral part of farming since the beginning of agriculture. Drone scouting exists at the intersection of efficiency and technology to capitalize on the amount of time required for scouting and analysis in order to free up time for additional activities. Traditional crop scouting methods typically include spending hours and days walking fields, manually observing the crop and taking field notes on any areas that may need additional attention and sampling. Drone scouting simplifies the process and streamlines efficiency, so trusted advisers can spend their time scouting additional fields and more focused time ground truthing specific areas of the field.

2. Offer Precise Recommendations and Prescriptions

Growers want data-driven recommendations that enhance their farming operation. Drone scouting provides more information than previously possible alongside visual proof points. This allows retailers and agronomists to present you with the best options because they have a more complete picture of what’s going on in your fields. They can offer you more informed, quicker recommendations for a healthy operation. By collecting a wealth of data in significantly less time than traditional scouting methods, drone scouting provides you with precise solutions to your unique field challenges.

3. Drive Land Stewardship and Sustainability

More data and visibility lead to smarter, more precise use of inputs. Growers and retailers can use drone scouting to identify when and where it is most efficient to make applications, lessening excess applications. By using inputs only when and where necessary, you can decrease the number of trips across your field, enhance sustainable farming practices, and improve land stewardship. Prescription technology through drone scouting allows retailers to go beyond a birds-eye view and get into a sub-field look at what’s going on in your fields; their recommendations can help you address specific problem areas of a field, focusing your applications to the precise needs of your field.

By Peyton Merriam
Digital Ag Solutions Marketing Lead | Syngenta