Drones are leading the way in crop spraying

Sugar cane responds well to a ripening spray at about eight weeks before harvest. But Tim Wise, who grew up on a sugar cane farm in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN), remembers how his family struggled with uneven and inaccurate delivery of this spray by crop-spraying aircraft.

Sugar cane in South Africa is usually cultivated on hilly terrain with steep gradients, and the average field size is small, at around 6ha. These factors, combined with coastal winds and obstacles such as electricity pylons, natural bush lines and cell phone towers, make low-level flying difficult and dangerous.

To make matters worse, the ripening spray is often essentially a low-concentrate herbicide, so it is crucial to prevent spray from drifting onto other crops or neighbouring cane fields at a different growth phase. Together, all these factors frequently result in inaccurate application by aeroplane,