Maryland

Spray Drone Season Hits Full Throttle: 3 Service Providers Flying Acres and Boosting Yields

Tue, 29 Jul 2025 18:15:49 GMT

Nebraska native Andy Kreikemeier’s phone hasn’t stopped ringing all week, and it won’t go silent anytime soon.

That’s because his former hobby and volunteer side hustle, flying drones for the county emergency response team, transformed into a full-time gig as a spray drone operator. Kreikemeier is one-third of a team of spray drone pilots with business partners Brett Scheiding and Brad Eisenhauer. Together, the three local volunteer firefighters started Infinity Precision Ag, a custom drone application service provider in southeast Nebraska.

The Infinity team is in the crunch of the summer plant health application season, and farmers without access to a Hagie high-clearance sprayer or an aerial application service need the timely sprays these certified drone pilots provide to get their crop across the finish line and in good shape for fall harvest.

The trio is in their sophomore season offering per-acre spray drone application services to farmers, and the group learned “a ton” from last year’s rookie campaign.

“Spray drones are definitely a good tool because they can do a lot of specialized things, and it’s fun to see the old farmers come out and watch these things. They’ll tell me ‘Never in my day would I have thought this was something I’d be using’,” Kreikemeier says. “It’s a fun change, and it works. You can get more precise with your applications, and you get the stuff where you want it at all times.”

The team at Infinity exclusively flies Hylio spray drones, which are manufactured in Texas. Hylio was among the first U.S. service providers – Iowa-based Rantizo being one of the others – to receive FAA approval to swarm , or operate in concert, multiple spray drones in one flight mission. Swarming is exactly how Kreikemeier and his team prefer to operate the mostly automated quadcopters. By operating multiple spray drones together in a fleet, Infinity can cover more acres per hour.

Related: Trump Issues Executive Order Making Ag Drones More Efficient

Kreikemeier says the service requests from farmers this summer are “about 50-50” fungicide on corn applications and insecticide or foliar-applied biological sprays. There hasn’t been a lot of Tar Spot disease pressure in his area yet, but Gray Leaf Spot in corn is something farmers need to proactively spray for.

(Lindsey Pound)

While he won’t go as far as saying the drones are a superior application tool to a large ground rig or aerial application plane, he does see some advantages to using the technology.

“The drones can definitely get the products deeper into the plant canopy — at least that’s what I’m seeing right now,” Kreikemeier says, adding he’s also seeing improved application quality on end-rows and sensitive areas near buffers, streams and rural housing developments. An aerial applicator would usually have to pull up and gain altitude to avoid those obstacles, potentially leaving some spray to drift off-target. But an unmanned drone can stay low and keep blasting active ingredients directly into the canopy.

“Guys are definitely telling me they can see a difference between what the drones have done and what the planes have done,” he says.

From Photographer to Pilot-In-Charge

Drone shots of a drone spraying fungicide on corn field sprayer spray - By Lindsey Pound

(Lindsey Pound)

Over on the East Coast, Joshua Berry got his start in the drone world along the same lines as many early adopters: he built up a custom photography and videography business for years before making the decision to integrate aerial photography to stay relevant.

The first drone he purchased is widely considered one of the “OGs” in the drone world: DJI’s Phantom 1. Berry recalls his aerial photography service didn’t take off right away, but he always knew ag was an industry he wanted to join. The realization came fast and hard that he was facing an uphill battle to make that dream a reality, as his family didn’t own land or have a legacy in farming.

Berry’s big breakthrough came when he started using drones equipped with thermal cameras to help deer hunters locate fallen prey deep in the woods. The service gave him a foot in the door with local farmers – many of whom are avid hunters or at the very least friends with hunters – along Maryland’s specialty ag-rich Eastern Shore.

refilling drone spraying fungicide on corn field sprayer spray - By Lindsey Pound

(Lindsey Pound)

“A guy out in Ohio saw what I was doing and wanted to get into the deer recovery stuff, so he befriended me, and I helped teach him a couple things,” Berry says. “One day he calls me up and he’s like, ‘Yo, have you seen these agricultural drones?’ I was like, ‘Yeah, I have my eye on it.’ And he tells me it’s going to be the next big thing.”

Berry started doing research and soon enough he agreed with his buddy in Ohio that spray drones would be his ticket to a career in farming. He ordered a pair of DJI Agras T-40 models and started working on getting licensed to legally apply chemicals.

That took him a few months (today the FAA licensing process has been streamlined), and he was able to start flying and applying midway through the 2024 growing season.

“I did a lot of research and networking before I flew a single acre, so I felt like I set myself up for success (early on),” Berry says. “Even though it was a dry year – dry and hot means there’s not a lot of pressure on farmers to spray – I ended the season with between 2,500 and 3,000 acres. For a guy in his first half of a season, I was happy with that.

Related: How Spray Drones Revolutionize Corn Farming, Make Farmers More Efficient and Sustainable

This year, Berry’s acreage will double to about 6,000-7,000. That’s an impressive figure, considering how fields are laid out on the East Coast. This isn’t Iowa, Berry says, where a drone operator can park at an intersection and knock out 300 acres of flat, continuous fields without having to move the truck and tender trailer.

As far as the job mix this summer, he is putting on a lot of single pass fungicide-insecticide-liquid fertilizer applications across a diverse mix of crops. Berry is also hearing some farmers in his area are buying drones themselves and skipping the whole FAA licensing process to spray their crops themselves.

“That’s going to hurt us as an industry, big time. And also, it’s going to hurt the farmers eventually. Even though the enforcement wing of the FAA is almost nonexistent, there is enforcement out there,” he says. “They may not have the manpower (now), but if that changes, you’re going to see these unlicensed guys really start to get dinged.”

Tendering for Spray Drones

The Mitten State is a good proving ground for spray drone applications, says Leon Thelen, agricultural drone application specialist, On Point Application Group (Battle Creek, Mich.).

For one, there aren’t many options for custom aerial application services available to growers like there are in the western Corn Belt. And Michigan farms are often broken into collections of smaller, oddly shaped fields with power lines, tree stands and residential developments nearby. That makes plane applications dicey.

And finally, the state has a diverse crop mix that features a lot of high-value, specialty crops like cranberries, cherries, potatoes and sugar beets. There are a lot of farmers looking to make applications without running over expensive plants with a ground rig.

Related: 7 Expert Tips To Maximize Spray Drone Efficiency

Thelen says On Point Application Group is doing a lot of field border insecticide applications, spot spraying tough weed escapes like water hemp, and putting out full field broadcast applications of fungicides with its XAG P140 spray drones.

One critical aspect of the business Thelen and his team have sorted out over the past few months is tendering. He says the giant, bi-level prefab drone tender trailers you see around the Midwest are good for most operations, but a smaller footprint tender that can fit in the back of an extended pickup is ideal for the type of work he’s doing in Michigan.

“Being that I’ve backed a trailer into a lot of fields, I like lightweight equipment that’s nimble,” he says. “We’ve got a trailer with 1,000 gallons of water and a mix tank that we can leave at the field edge and unhook. Then we have this 200-gallon hot tank with our charging equipment , batteries and everything we can take into the field. This setup works well when you’re working off (irrigation) pivot lanes or back in behind the woods. I like to be close to the field.”

Your Next Read: Yes, Corn Sweat is Real, But Here’s Why the Humidity is So Thick This Year

Will The Collapse Of The Baltimore Key Bridge Impact Agriculture?

Wed, 27 Mar 2024 18:21:53 GMT

Early Tuesday morning, a cargo ship struck the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, causing it to collapse. The Port of Baltimore later announced all vessel traffic in and out of the port is suspended indefinitely.

pic.twitter.com/VUDcNw0z5T
— Port of Baltimore (@portofbalt) March 26, 2024

Mike Steenhoek, executive director at the Soy Transportation Coalition, joined the AgriTalk podcast shortly after to share what this devastating event could mean for shipping and the agriculture industry.

“[The Port of Baltimore] doesn’t accommodate a lot in terms of agricultural exports,” he says. “Sugar would be No. 1, then soybeans No. 2, grain products including corn and wheat are No. 3 and then coffee and grocery items.”

According to Steenhoek, the Port of Baltimore exports around 200,000 metric tons of soybeans. In comparison, the Mississippi Gulf near New Orleans is the No. 1 export region for soybeans and exports 35 million metric tons.

He shares the port is a larger importer and exporter of automobiles and light trucks, but the supply chain can have a ripple effect.

“It’s all a part of this big issue that when it comes to supply chains: don’t put all of your eggs in one basket,” Steenhoek says. “The more you can spread your eggs across multiple baskets, the better you are, and the more resilient you are. So, we take real concern when you’ve got a major disruption at one of our ports.”

During a press conference, Maryland transportation secretary Paul J. Wiedefeld said it’s too early to tell how long the port will be closed.

Is It Safe To Spread Manure This Winter?

Tue, 17 Nov 2020 05:22:51 GMT

Vermont, Iowa, Maryland, Indiana, Minnesota and Wisconsin: what do all these states have in common? These states all have winter manure application bans established (different conditions exist within each state). So, “Is winter manure spreading allowed in Michigan?” Yes, and Michigan State University Extension recognizes that the proper timing of manure spreading as well as the rate of application allows for maximum nutrient retention within soils all while protecting water quality resources via limiting nutrient losses during runoff events.

Spreading manure in the winter can be quite beneficial (and necessary in some scenarios) for livestock and cropping operations, but this practice is not without its environmental risks, especially if manure is not properly managed.

According to the literature review article Winter Manure Application: Management Practices and Environmental Impact from the North Central Region Soil Health Nexus , associated risks of winter manure application include:

Increased runoff of manure nutrients and contaminants due to the spring thaw if manure is applied in late winter
Soil productivity decrease and local water bodies are impacted as these manure nutrients and contaminants runoff

Risks aside, when properly applied, manure that is spread in the winter can:

Decrease the size and number of manure storages needed on the farmstead
Allow farmers to spread manure when logistics make sense for them
Reduce the amount of compaction on the soil due to the spreading equipment running over compressible soil

The Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development ’s (MDARD) Michigan Agriculture Environmental Assurance Program (MAEAP) and the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) have developed a helpful information guide to help farmers determine if their manure spreading habits are a risk to environmental quality.

There are five questions in this guide that look specifically at:

Manure storage capacity
Slope and drainage of fields
Weather forecasts and seasonal conditions
Amount of snow on the field
Type of manure being applied

Each question has a “risk-o-meter” that is color coded from green to red allowing farmers to visualize whether their spreading habits are at a high or low risk.

Winter Manure: A Hot Topic in Cold Weather

Additional resources and tools that are available to help farmers evaluate (on a field-by-field basis) the risk of winter manure spreading include:

MDARD Right to Farm’s Generally Accepted Agricultural Management Practices for Manure Management and Utilization
MDEQ’s Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation permit requirements
The Manure Application Risk Index

More information on these resources can be found at the Michigan State University Extension News article “ Resources available on winter spreading .”

With a good understanding of the benefits and risks associated with winter manure applications and access to available resources from Michigan State University Extension and the MAEAP Program, farmers are better equipped to make decisions on the right source of manure, rate and timing of application, and correct placement. This also allows farmers to meet their cropping system goals of increased production, increased profitability and enhanced environmental protection of Michigan’s waters and approved sustainability.

States Sue EPA Over Clean Water Rule Delay

Tue, 17 Nov 2020 05:19:48 GMT

(Bloomberg) -- Ten states and a coalition of environmental groups sued the Trump administration for suspending a 2015 rule that was billed as a long-overdue update to the definition of lakes, rivers and wetlands designed to improve protection under the Clean Water Act of 1972.

The attorneys general from 10 states and the District of Columbia accused the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers of violating federal law by delaying the Obama administration’s “Clean Water Rule” for another two years. The move was part of President Donald Trump’s promise to slash regulations.

“The Trump Administration’s suspension of the Clean Water Rule is clearly illegal, threatening New York’s decades-long efforts to ensure our residents have access to safe, healthy water,” New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who is leading the coalition, said after filing suit Tuesday in Manhattan federal court.

The agencies allegedly acted without considering scientific evidence developed in support of the rule. The EPA, led by longtime agency critic Scott Pruitt, has often questioned scientific consensus on environmental matters, including the human causes of climate change.

Attorneys general from states including Mississippi, Texas and Louisiana had sued the Obama administration to stop the rule, saying it wrongly applied to lands far from traditionally “navigable waters.” The Supreme Court in January overturned rulings in those cases that barred the rule from taking effect. By then, however, the EPA had already pushed back the rule’s “applicability date” by two years under directives from Trump.

“These lawsuits are over an embattled regulation that’s been put on hold by the courts to prevent it from taking effect,” EPA spokeswoman Molly Block said. “Our delay rule will keep in place that status quo.”

Schneiderman was joined by attorneys general, all Democrats, from California, Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington.

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