Upangle Working To Make Drones Commonplace In Northwest Ag

Are drones catching on as the latest way to monitor crops, and livestock here in the Northwest.

Yes, albeit slowly, according to UpAngle Agriculture.

The Eastern Washington company focuses on Plant Stress Assessment, Yield Monitoring, Weed Detection and more. Bryan Monarch told the Washington Ag Network, while there are some reluctance individuals in the agriculture community, once they see the difference between the image produced via traditional methods, and those with drone technology, the improvements are clear.

“It just blows everything out of the water, and really, it’s always going to be a growth pattern for ag in general.  I mean GPS was a thing that took a while for it to take off and now drones are just the next step especially for the guys that are in variable rate," Monarch said.

Justin Coronado said while drones have become more common and will expand in the future with the FAA, operating the can be challenging for traditional farmers.

“The camera drones and the production stuff is becoming fairly simple to use, the technology in those markets have really, really progressed," Coronado said.  "What we’re trying to do is take a whole new technology with the drones, the different sensors and the different soft wares that you need to be able to apply, that’s where a  lot of the learning takes place..”

Coronado says despite reservations by Northwest farmers, there remains a ton of potential moving forward.  Fore our complete conversation with Coronado and Monarch, click here:

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