Dairy farmers are wanting to learn how to use drones, as they diversify their use on farm. Photos: Jeanette Severs
Photo by
Jeanette Severs
Dairy farmers are becoming more adept with using drone technology.
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That was the message from Ethan Lewis of Worker Bee Drones, at the recent South Gippsland Dairy Expo.
Ethan is a remote pilot working across Victoria and said he had diversified his services because of farmer demand.
“Initially, farmers wanted us to do the work,” he said.
That work involved developing two-dimensional and three-dimensional mapping of the property, then identifying weeds and undertaking spot spraying.
“Now, we’re training a lot of farmers to use drones themselves, because they want to operate them,” Ethan said.
Ethan Lewis, of Worker Bee Drones, with a small drone farmers are using to check on calving cows at night.
One of the first changes, was farmers contracting for the property to be mapped, then learning how to use drones themselves to spot spray.
Drones can be used for sowing and fertilising paddocks, which improves the efficiency of doing work between wet weather windows, when heavy machinery cannot get on to the ground.
Farmers have since further diversified their own use, as they realise the efficiency of using drones for other jobs.
Ethan said smaller drones were being bought by farmers to, for example, monitor calving.
Used during the night or day, today’s drones can identify heat profiles using thermal and infrared profiling.
“At night, thermal imaging detects heat, to help you find the animals,” Ethan said.
“Infrared imaging gives you night vision, and provides high-resolution imaging.
“You can take videos or stills of an animal’s pelvis area to check her calving status.
“At night time, in particular, that improves safety for the farmer or farm worker, because they’re not travelling on laneways and through paddocks in the dark.
“In the daytime, it saves a lot of time to be able to send a drone to check cows, and you still have time to address most problems.”
Ethan said the sound and movement of the drone created little disturbance among dairy cows at night.
“Drones can save a lot of people’s time, and reduce their need to travel around the farm at night,” Ethan said.
Ethan and his colleague, Jes Sago, were demonstrating how to use drones at the expo, held at Korumburra, and at the Mt Lyall Dairy open day at Nyora.
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