So far March came in as the proverbial lamb. Will it leave as a lamb or as a lion, growling and snarling in the form of a big, cold blizzard. Here is central Iowa the only snow left is in the form of large snowdrifts around trees or buildings where they once clogged up traffic. The northern two tiers of counties are hoping for a continuation of this warm weather and the drifts to disappear. The big blizzard that dropped 12 – 15” of snow changed course as it entered the plains and made an unexpected course shift 75 miles N of its original projected path. Our contracted meteorologist is expecting a few short cold spells where Canadian air drops down for a few days, but arctic and polar air masses will not return.
There remain questions about this upcoming growing season. Will it normalize or be hot and dry? Parts of the Midwest endured 2.5 years of a D2 – D3 drought and there is a lot of catching up soil moisture wise if we can expect trend line yields. Again, our meteorologist is predicting more moisture fronts marching across the states west of the Mississippi with dry conditions moving to east of that river. With the ground partially thawing out more of the moisture received can infiltrate and be saved for use later in the summer.
Keeping or restoring more carbon in the ground is a concept now accepted by corn, beans, alfalfa and pasture operators from the standpoint that our soil organic matter levels now are typically half of what they were thirty to forty years ago. Reversing the trend is important, as each extra percent increase in soil organic matter represents an extra 240,000 gals of water saved in the soil for crop use later in the season.
Sports
March is the month when us sports enthusiasts can pay attention to baseball spring training activity and their pet teams. High school girl’s and boy’s basketball teams play their tournament games. Men’s and women’s college teams finish their final league game and begin tournament play. We cheer on the Cyclones games and pay attention to the new Cyclone recruits. There were a group of them in the hallway at the West Virginia game, towering above most of the fans. After a string of disappointing games, it was good to see a number of former bench sitters get minutes on the court and contribute. We had been waiting for the Caledonia Kid, Eli King to play, and the Minnesota natives contribute to the Baylor Bear slaughter. TJ seems to have the ISU team revived, working together, and ready to take no prisoners.
Drone Prospects
One arena whose time has come to Ag and its custom application business is that of the aerial drones. My guess is they will be increasingly important as their size and payload capacity increases and as high clearance ground rigs become even more expensive. I stopped at the Rantizo office in Iowa City last week. Currently they seem to be furthest along in figuring out how a drone manufacturing and marketing company needs to operate and solve application needs of crop producers. Their goal is to sell drones to two parties: Individual growers needing to add to their spray fleet. And to young Ag entrepreneurs who want to be involved in Ag, and might be farming already on a limited scale. They see the promise of being involved in the custom spraying business serving growers who need their help if they don’t have the time, equipment or desire to make the applications themselves. The Rantizo group plans will train the people how to fly the drone, helping cooperators apply for the permits and licensing, and providing the plumbed tanks to slide into the PU bed to nurse each drone with the correct spray mix.
There are several reasons for this to happen. In parts of many states the fields are too small or too chopped up to operate a 90 or 120 ft boomed sprayer in. There are also farmers who have fields near town or residential areas where spray pilots don’t want to operate or spray rig operators don’t want to fight traffic when driving to the fields. Car drivers have very poor judgement with large rigs on the road. There are also fields surrounded by trees of power lines where plant pilots put their lives at risk. With super high-priced farmland farmers will need to aim for higher yields. These high yield management programs include more later season application of fertilizers or biologicals. Sending a drone out to fly the fields will attract less attention from local inhabitants who are fearful of pesticides. Those later application will include mostly mineral blends.
Then if you remember the 2018 and 2019 seasons, parts of the state received caught 150 to 200% of normal rainfall. Many expensive ground rigs sat for 30 days without being used due to saturated soils. Farmers in that situation would have gladly hired drone operators to fly their acres to make the necessary applications if yields or grain quality were being jeopardized. Then there are often fields where the weed pressure in spots in a field is getting worse by the day, but the fields remained too wet to permit traffic.
In checking out and visiting with the companies at recent farm shows it was good to get information on the drone specifics as to load capacity: liquid or dry, spray width, capabilities, travel speed, spray coverage and means of propulsion, most are battery while are a few use liquid fuels. Their designs and capabilities vary tremendously. At the Farm Progress Show last summer there were drones large enough to carry a grown man. For some reason that company had not considered converting it to a remote-controlled spray vehicle.
When preplant or early post applications are needing to be made, a large gallonage self-propelled or pull type spray with large capacity is still needed.
The questions then with what products lend themselves best to be applied by drones. Herbicides may be on the list as long as they don’t cause a drift problems and good coverage deep into the canopy is not necessary. The same applies to insecticides with recognition that toxicity, drift and rural residents have to be accounted for. Applying foliar fertilizers and growth regulators would also be on the list for drone application. Lastly and most important would be fungicides. The characteristics and requirements for acceptable results on each crop using each product will be dependent on: the size and density of the canopy; the degree of systemic movement within the plant; whether curative action occurs; and how many gallons of carrier are suggested.
At the Capitan Miranda Research Station in Paraguay nearly twenty years ago a team, including Glenn Hartmann and Monte Miles of the U of Illinois, and Wilfredo Morel Paivia, manager of the research station, they found so little systemic and curative action with all the strobe and triazoles that applying those fungicides to the left side of the SB leaves did not protect the tissue on the right side of the leaf.
Looking thru the many drone manufacturing companies most still run or batteries. Keeping them charged up is often a limitation. The battery powered drone typically carry as much as 8 gallons. Larger battery powered, more recently designed ones now can carry heavier loads, some up to 40 L. An Australian company, Brouav, makes one that carries 52 L of product and reportedly can spray 48 acres per hour.
If you want to see the most futuristic, yet practical drone, look up John Deere and their Volocopter, which they projected as a possible replacement for helicopters in making aerial applications. With it being steered and controlled remotely, and not having to carry a pilot’s weight, it has its advantages. It carries up to a 220 kg payload and could spray about twenty acres per hour. No cost estimates were given for it and will it ever be commercialized.
If any of you are considering using drones in any of your fields or find yourself in-season behind in getting applications made on time due to breakdowns or frequent rains, important information is knowing what products have a perfect fit for being applied by a drone. There are important qualifiers with each product. Are you going to be using products that are rapidly systemic and act curatively? Has the crop already gotten infected and, if so, what is the level of incidence and severity of the disease? Are thorough coverage and lot of gallons of carrier necessary, or are 2 gpa sufficient? Is deep canopy penetration necessary? Do they have a long residual or need reapplication every seven days? Then I want products which have reach-back, meaning they have curative action. If the insects are already in the fields, or if the disease lesions are already appearing on your plants, will that product still provide effective control? Appling Albion mineral products to boost the plants’ immune response seems the best program and MOA.
New Old Sprayers
Be aware that progress has been made using the idea of electrostatic sprayers. The boom put a positive charge on the small spray droplets. These particles were attracted to all surfaces of the plants, tops, sides, and undersides of the leaves. One degreed engineer has figured them out and is building small models to be used for demo trials. The amount of product used was reduced and there was little off spray. Several sprayer companies in western Europe were building and selling them in the mid-70s to early 80s.
What Plans Still Needing to be Made
Most years there is still snow on and frost is still in the ground. If the weather in the next week or two is still this warm, growers still have a of prep work to get done along with wrench work on equipment. Final fertilizer plans still need to be made and product spoken for. I was hoping to see Convintro, the new waterhemp herbicide from Bayer to be available. It sounds like the EPA staff has delayed its approval. That was one I was hoping to see the in-field results as all amaranth species seem to be causing problems. In the older days we got used to seeing new high impact herbicides appearing almost every year. Part of the problem is that there are few discovery teams to develop new products.
Bob Streit is an independent crop consultant and columnist for Farm News. He can be reached at (515) 709-0143 or www.CentralIowaAg.com.