Operational Result - Agri-Services - Keeping the savings in your pocket

Task - 1600 acres (scattered) Apply Grazon and Metsun herbicide to blackberry noxious weed to grazing land elevation 1680m above sea level, steep, rough, semi cleared, mountain terrain over a total of 5 days. Low volume, high concentrate "on label" use. Applied at 100 litres per hectare in a spot spraying application. Blackberry bushes range in size from young ground runners to massive overgrown patches 60meters wide in some sections. Previous year saw a manned helicopter dump over 1200litres on just 7 hectare wiping out mature growth kurrajongs, white box, eucalyptus with no ability to target amongst or below tree line. Deployed smallest of the AGRAS range being the T10, fully manual flights with no autonomy, targeted with map produced by multi-spectral sensor, processed for RTK location. Covered 1600 acres in 5 days total with spot spraying application using half the aerial application rate (aerial application rate is 200litres per hectare, 2 x passes, actual use was 100litres per hectare, single full coverage only on the weeds). Total herbicide used 677litres, Kill rated estimated to be at over 90%. Outcome - Used just over half of the overall herbicide on the previous year. That being Grazon Extra provides significant cost savings in itself (purchase price $295 per 5 litre unmixed drum). Customer commented that the cost of applying pesticide by drone was over 30% cheaper than the cost of the manned helicopter and demonstrated our ability to spray the pesticide where it needed to be. Comparison to a land crew of 2 people with a mobile spray unit on the back of a ute, time taken to cover as much as my AGRAS over 3 weeks. We had it knocked over in 5 full days. 1 very happy beef farmer, needless to say, he has already booked us in for next year.