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The NDSU Extension weekly podcast In the Pod: Soybean Updates delivers timely insights and expert advice on soybean production.
You're listening to In The Pod, Soybean Updates, a weekly trek into the latest soybean information from NDSU Extension. Today, we're talking about drone spraying technology. Being efficient with chemicals is cheaper and better for the environment, but can drone sprayers do the job? Our guest today is Rob Proulx, extension agriculture technology systems specialist. Rob, has drone spraying in North Dakota changed much over time?
Rob Proulx:Yeah. It's changed quite a lot. The North Dakota Aeronautics Commission tracks aerial applications in the state, including drone spraying, and they long 6,000 acres worth in 2022. If we fast forward to 2025, it was a 186,000 acres. So a lot of growth in that time period.
Bruce Sundeen:So what are some of the advantages and disadvantages of the Spray Drone Tech?
Rob Proulx:So some of the advantages, there are certain operational niches you could call them or specialized circumstances where they make a lot of sense. In talking to applicators, they found if you're doing small areas, patch based spraying, they work really well or areas that otherwise would have to be done by hand or with an ATV or a side by side. So things in uneven terrain, for example, natural areas, rangeland areas in the Badlands, for example, where you would otherwise have to spray with these smaller sprayers, the drone can be really helpful and can be really beneficial from a safety standpoint as well on that uneven terrain. Another example could be if you have a three-dimensional target. We don't run into this as much in large scale field crops, but for things like orchards, trees, bushes, grapevines, where the target is three-dimensional, the nature of the spray from a drone where it has this sideways movement with the downdraft from the spray drone can really help to cover those three d targets a little more effectively. And another advantage is that they are relatively low cost. So if you're comparing even the largest spray drones to the big ground sprayers, they're quite a bit less expensive. You're talking maybe a 100,000 versus 3 quarters of $1,000,000. And of course they're not as productive, but nonetheless, that's a pretty stark cost difference. Some of the limitations, like I mentioned, you can't match the capacity of large airplanes or large ground sprayers. The largest drones can maybe get two thirds of the productivity of a ground sprayer, but to do that, it requires a lot of refills. So it kind of invites fatigue for the operators. Those operators are kind of running themselves ragged to reach that level of capacity. The reduced productivity is one of the main limitations. Another would be is that it requires entirely new expertise. So when you're dealing with a ground sprayer, we know how wide it is. The boom width is how wide your spray is going to be with a spray drone depends on the weather conditions. It depends on the nature of the drone itself. And that drone is making a lot of automated adjustments as it's flying as the operator, you have no control over those. So those little tweaks can cause little oscillations in your spray pattern and your spray with that are difficult to manage. So that's another limitation of this particular technology.
Bruce Sundeen:Rob, what about licensing and permits?
Rob Proulx:The licensing component, there are certain aspects of it that have been streamlined a bit, but there's still definitely a process to doing it. What we're having is the system where it's really similar to what manned pilots would do. It's maybe a little more involved than one would expect if they're coming into it without a whole lot of background. I wrote about this in a little more depth in the crop and pest report from 06/04/2026. You can refer back to that for a little more detail, but essentially there's five requirements at minimum that you need. So you need to have a remote pilot certificate with the FAA and you would need that if you're flying small drones as well. You need to register your drone, both the federal and state level. You need to have an agricultural aircraft operating certificates. This is something that manned pilots would need as well. And then you need your state pesticide applicator license in North Dakota would work through NDSU extension for that. And then you need insurance as well. So you need those five things at minimum. Ideally you would have three additional things as well. And that is some pattern testing of your equipment where you don't just take the color brochures word for it. You actually test it yourself to see what it's capable of. You would also want to have some knowledge of the local airspace and some of the safety practices with flying your drone, and also really a commitment to continued professional development because this technology changes so quickly. There's still a lot to be learned about the application technology and how it works. So keeping up with that is pretty important.
Bruce Sundeen:Thanks, Rob. Our guest has been Rob Proulx, Extension Agriculture Technology Systems Specialist. You're listening to In the Pod Soybean Updates, a weekly trek into the latest soybean information from NDSU Extension, supported by the North Dakota Soybean Council.