In the past five years, Lukas Koch says we’ve seen an evolution in technology, capabilities and opportunities with drones used in agriculture. And he doesn’t think it’s going to slow down.
“It’s been quite a crazy ride,” says Koch, who is CEO of Kelly Hills Unmanned Systems “In fact, I think the following five years will be even more crazy. With the maturity of some of the systems we’re beginning to see now, growers are going to have as equipment on their farm or ag retailers could have as a tool in their tool kit. We have products that have matured with obstacle avoidance, longer flight times, better spray patterns… so I think drones are certainly here to stay.”
Koch says what was a few curious early adopters has exploded into more than 20,000 spray drones.
Kelly Hills spun out of Heinen Brothers AgriServices last year after being an internal project for more than four years. Today, Kelly Hills works with OEMs to get their product ready for market, with universities on research and with FAA regulators.
“I often say there’s more acres out there right now than the airplanes and helicopters can cover already, so the introduction of the drone is just going to keep allowing us to cover more acres,” he says. “We think it’s a good hand-in-hand relationship between the airplanes and the drones.”
Koch reflects that the early days of drone application in agriculture were focused on specialty crops, but with product innovation and technology development, the footprint and possibilities have greatly expanded. He cites the recent unveiling of the Pyka drone with 80-gal. capacity and 38’ wingspan as an example.
“In our real-world testing, we were getting around 200 acres per hour with that drone, which is a pretty, shocking number,” he says.
As for beyond application, Koch says drones being used for equipment setup, such as on a grain elevator left, used for carrying agricultural cargo/materials, and more.
“I often liken it to the adoption of the tractor. They started early on, were really slow and quite dangerous, really. They were made with boilers, and they would explode, and then we got small internal combustible engines, thanks to people like Henry Ford. And people wanted these tractors, but they still had a team of horses, and they were thinking to themselves, I don’t know if this slow machine that only does plowing is going make it,” he says.
“But slow adoption happened. Could you imagine standing in 1903, looking at a tractor, and imagining what tractors do for us today? I say no way, there’s no way I could have imagined it. So I feel like we’re in 1903 right now with spray drones. Right now, we’re just concerned about spraying. Allow it to do one thing well first, but I think long-term, this just turns into an asset that does a lot of heavy lifting for farmers.”
Hear more of Koch’s insights and predictions on The Scoop podcast.
