The Stratus AirSprayer, a new drone tool unveiled by Saskatchewan-based Precision AI in July, is unlike anything she’s seen so far.

“I think they’ve got something really special,” says Meisser, who was invited to see the AirSprayer in action during field testing in New Mexico in May.

“There are a lot of things that make the Stratus AirSprayer unique,” she adds. “I think it will change how the farming community starts to think about managing crops. It’s going to shift some mindsets.”

The Stratus AirSprayer is different than the quadcopters and fixed-wing UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) typically associated with ag drones. Essentially, it’s a powered paraglider — one that can carry heavier loads and stay aloft much longer than conventional drones.

Daniel McCann, founder and CEO of Precision AI, says the advanced, autonomous aerial sprayer was designed to increase efficiency and maximize field time in the kind of large-acre farms found in Western Canada.

“Spray drones are great if you have 40 acres of onions or something like that,” says McCann. “But if you’ve got 10,000 acres of canola, good luck getting a small drone sprayer to cover that.”

The body of the Stratus AirSprayer is 3.25 metres (10 feet, eight inches) long, 2.1 metres (six feet, nine inches) wide and 2.25 metres (seven feet, five inches) high. It weighs 700 lbs. (318 kg) empty and can carry a payload of up to 833 lbs. (378 kg).

The machine has a three-blade propeller at the back powered by a Rotax 100-horsepower gasoline engine, and it relies on a 541-square-foot (50.3-metre) parachute or “soft wing” to stay aloft.

McCann acknowledges the Precision AI team was a bit worried at first about how the UAV’s parachute would go over, given that it’s so different.

But he says that really hasn’t been a concern, once farmers are shown how the Stratus AirSprayer works, and they can see how handling the parachute isn’t any harder than folding and unfolding a spray boom.

The flight speed of the AirSprayer is just under 40 m.p.h. (61 km/h) and it is able to take off from a farmer’s field as long as there is 350 to 500 feet (107 to 152 metres) of runway room available. When the job’s done, the hardware can be loaded onto a flatbed truck or a 12-foot trailer, and the canopy folded and packed up into an easy-to-carry travel bag.

The Stratus AirSprayer can carry 100 U.S. gallons (378 litres) of herbicide, fungicide or insecticide solutions, which according to Precision AI is almost 20 times more than smaller ag drones. A bigger payload means more time in the air and more acres covered in a day.

The gas-powered AirSprayer can fly up to five hours before refueling, which McCann maintains is an obvious advantage over electric drones. “Your typical spray drones, even the big ones, typically max out at about 10 minutes of airtime, then you’ve got to swap batteries and refill it,” he says.

All this can mean substantial savings for farmers. Precision AI maintains it costs less than $3 per acre to operate the Stratus AirSprayer, a fraction of the cost of traditional drone technology which it says ranges from $6 to $13 per acre.

The automated Stratus AirSprayer can do precise GPS-guided broadcast sprays in two interchangeable swath widths, one 18 feet (5.5-metre) wide and the other 30 feet (nine-metres) wide.

A Generation Two version of the AirSprayer, slated to be released soon after the Generation One model, will feature green-on-green spray capability, developed by Precision AI with the use of artificial intelligence and advanced computer vision.

McCann says even with its high-tech capabilities, the Stratus AirSprayer isn’t difficult to operate and maintain, adding to its appeal to farmers. “Except for the onboard AI system, everything can be fixed fairly easily.”

While the Stratus AirSprayer is designed to allow farmers to do large-scale aerial applications on their own, it isn’t meant to compete directly with crop dusters and other aerial spraying businesses. Instead, Precision AI views them as potential partners as the UAV is unrolled in the Canadian market.

That likely won’t happen right away, as the Canadian government hasn’t yet approved using drones in aerial applications of crop protectant products. Precision AI is on a committee to advise Canada’s Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA) on the necessary changes required to allow spraying from UAVs.

“At the end of the day, we’ve got the technology that can be used as an automated aerial sprayer. It’s built out, and we just need to wait for the regulatory environment to catch up,” says McCann.

Precision AI hopes the PMRA will follow the lead of U.S. regulators and release a decision soon approving the use of drones for ag chemical applications. In the meantime, Precision AI plans to continue testing in the U.S. as well as on farms in Western Canada as it prepares for a limited release of the Stratus AirSprayer next year.

Meisser views the AirSprayer as a good value proposition, both in terms of productivity and return on investment. She also sees it as a very practical solution for farmers looking to get the most out of their crops.

“The Precision AI team is really connected to the farming community and are trying to build solutions for farmers with farmers. I think that they’re solving problems that matter,” she says.

“I think they just got down to brass tacks to determine what does this (machine) really need to do.”

In Meisser’s eyes, it won’t take long for the Stratus AirSprayer to gain traction among farmers once it catches on with leading-edge ag adopters and influencers willing to give the technology a try.

“You just need some strong ambassadors to showcase the technology,” she says. “Farmers are the most innovative people I know. They solve problems on a daily basis, and it doesn’t take any of them too long to identify where they see value. I think they will embrace it.”

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Why it matters: Soil compaction can be a serious form of soil degradation resulting in decreased crop production and increased risk of soil erosion.

Here are some common mistakes that can make the problem worse.

1. Don’t criss-cross

Marla Riekman, a soil management specialist with Manitoba Agriculture and Resource Development, says one way soil compaction can increase in the fall is if there are multiple pieces of harvest equipment moving in several different directions.

Rather than follow the course of a combine, for example, a loaded grain cart may cut across the field in a perpendicular path to get to a waiting semi. This criss-cross action means there’s more area within the field that’s getting compacted.

“That’s why we often talk about compaction during harvest time as being more of an issue,” says Riekman. She recommends producers limit random field traffic as much as they can during harvest or for any other operation to try to minimize compaction caused by equipment.

Riekman says as one strategy, grain carts could travel along the headlands, then turn up and follow the tracks of the last combine pass. Once the grain cart reaches the combine, it could pull out, get filled up, and then retrace its route along the combine tracks.

“It means a little bit more travel time, but it could have a big benefit on the field.”

2. Don’t over-inflate tires

Riekman says it’s essential for farmers to keep an eye on their tires when operating field equipment because overinflated tires exert more ground pressure and cause more compaction as a result.

“Running tires at above their rated pressure for field activity is a bad thing, so you always want to make sure that you know what your proper inflation rate for field activity should be for the tire,” she says.

If producers don’t know what the proper rate is, Riekman suggests they try contacting the equipment or tire manufacturer to get the information.

3. Don’t overuse equipment

Plow pans are one type of soil compaction formed with the repeated use of tillage equipment. The move to no-till production systems has meant they are less of a concern, but Riekman says a newer practice can also cause compaction problems if it’s done frequently enough.

Riekman says with excessive use, high-speed shallow discs or vertical till units can create plow pan layers only a couple of inches deep. To help keep that from happening, she recommends producers try not to use the same piece of tillage equipment all the time on the same field, and instead rotate it with other implements if they can.

– Mark Halsall is the associate editor for Grainews.

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Why it matters: Nitrogen costs are increasing and there’s greater focus on the environmental costs of creating it, so alternatives are getting a lot of attention.

First on the scene was a biological product from NexusBioAg called Envita, which is a naturally occurring bacterium called Gluconacetobacter diazotrophicus. Envita was approved for use by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency in June 2020, following six years of farm trials on corn and soybean crops in the United States and Canada. It had its first full-season launch in Canada last year.

In November 2021, Corteva Agriscience followed suit by introducing Utrisha N, another naturally derived nitrogen-fixing bacterium that Prairie farmers can utilize for the 2022 growing season.

According to Kirsten Ratzlaff, product manager for seed applied technology, fungicides and nutrient management for Corteva Agriscience, Utrisha N was trialed at about 200 sites across Canada last year.

“It’s been quite a rigorous testing process to ensure that nutrition is going to provide the value we intend to provide our Canadian growers,” Ratzlaff says.

“We are really pleased with what we’ve seen performance-wise so far, and we intend to release a full yield summary and trial summary early in the new year.”

Utrisha N is applied as a foliar application. It enters the stomata openings on the epidermis of leaves and other plant material and colonizes the cells within them. The bacteria then quickly begin to capture nitrogen from the air and convert it into a usable form for the plant.

“This capture and convert process continues throughout the life cycle of the plant, resulting in a constant supply of nitrogen throughout the growing season,” says Ratzlaff.

A biostimulant like Utrisha N offers farmers faced with escalating fertilizer prices with another mode of action and a supplemental source of nitrogen, which enables farmers to improve the efficiency of their nutrient management programs. Utrisha N is also a sustainable source of nitrogen, since there are no leaching or loss implications or greenhouse gases released.

“We know that nitrogen fertilizers are a critical component to all farming operations, but they are also subject to loss or may not necessarily be available where or when the plant needs it,” Ratzlaff says. “That’s where Utrisha N comes in — to give that continuous supplemental support and source to ensure the plant has what it needs, when it needs it.”

Utrisha N is designed for established crops across Canada, including soybeans, corn, cereals and canola. 

Ratzlaff says as a foliar product, Utrisha N can be applied with spraying equipment found on most farms.

For corn and soybeans, application should be at the V4 to V8 stage. For cereal crops, it is at the four-leaf jointing stage.

Utrisha N is the first in a wave of new biological options for farmers coming from Corteva Agriscience.

“The portfolio is growing, and it is a significant priority for Corteva,” says Ratzlaff. “We’re investing in multiple categories, in biostimulants like Utrisha N, but also in the categories of biocontrol products and pheromones.

“We think this market is going to continue to grow and growers are going to find value for these types of solutions.”

Farm industry receptive

Developed by Azotic North America, Envita was registered in the United States in 2019 and then here in Canada a year later. NexusAgBio is the product’s distributor in Canada.

Daniel Samphir, senior marketing manager at NexusBioAg, says Envita was on display at the company’s BioAdvantage Trials Program, staged in 2021 to demonstrate the product’s effectiveness. A total of 40 farmers from Eastern Canada and 52 farmers from Western Canada and took part.

“We were really excited with our first-year results,” says Samphir, adding there was widespread interest among growers, product dealers, agronomists and the grain industry as a whole.

“This is a tool in the fertility toolbox that we haven’t had until this point,” says Nolan Berg, president of Azotic North America. “Canada has been actually a pleasant surprise in terms of how fast the uptake has been. The entire industry has been very receptive to it.”

Berg says innovative farmers and early adopters are leading the way, but added Envita is also gaining popularity with mainstream growers, noting the high cost of fertilizer and supply chain disruptions could be a factor.

Envita works by forming a symbiotic relationship with the host plant after it enters plant cells. It replicates and spreads throughout the whole plant, providing an alternative source of nitrogen that’s available all season long. By starting to fix nitrogen right away, Envita can also help with early plant establishment.

“It gets into the plant immediately, starts fixing nitrogen immediately and grows with the plant immediately,” says Berg. “We see, basically, a pop-up effect in soybeans and corn and other crops because of the speed of establishment.”

Envita can be applied both in-furrow and in foliar applications, and can be tank mixed with leading starter fertilizers as well as post-emergence herbicides. “We just want to give growers as many options as possible,” he says.

“We talk in terms of Envita filling the nitrogen gap. Imagine there is drought conditions like last year … and the crop only could get to 75 per cent of the nitrogen that it needed. Envita can fill that gap on a corn crop up to 25 per cent,” says Berg. “We actually see even more improved results with Envita under stress conditions.

“What we say to farmers is the first thing to do is to put Envita on with full fertility and see the upside. Prove it to yourself on your crops, on your farm and your conditions.”

Berg says the deepest data sets for Envita have been for corn and soybeans, and the numbers show soybean producers can get up to two to four more bushels per acre and corn producers up to seven to 10 bushels more per acre.

“We’re seeing some great results,” he adds. “When you start talking $5.50 or $6.00 corn and you’re getting seven more bushels, that’s pretty appealing.”

Berg points out Envita also comes with a performance guarantee for canola, wheat, soybeans and corn, as an added incentive for farmers to try it. “We take the risk away (with the guarantee), which essentially boils down to the product paying for itself at current commodity prices,” he says.

Potential game changer

John Heard, a soil fertility extension specialist with Manitoba Agriculture, says products like Envita and Utrisha N could be useful in helping to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from fertilizers used on Canadian farms. 

Heard says field trials of the new, nitrogen-fixing biological products have been conducted mostly by industry to date, and he believes more rigorous field validation is required to assess their efficacy in Canadian environments. However, he thinks they have the potential to be a real game changer. 

“Until Ag Canada and the universities solidly validate these products, they may not be accepted quickly, but that could be the silver bullet if they work,” Heard says. 

Berg says initial work on studying greenhouse gas emissions has shown Envita can reduce emissions by the equivalent of 65 kilograms of carbon dioxide per ton of corn. He believes if producers are regulated to reduce emissions from on-farm use of fertilizers, “products like Envita will become even more important.”

– Mark Halsall is associate editor for Grainews. His article appeared in the Jan. 4, 2022 issue.

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