Drone seeding
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Sow where the drill cannot go
Drones broadcast seed and seed pods onto ground that is too steep, too wet or too awkward for a machine.
| Category | Act |
| Slug | drone-seeding |
| Cadence | On demand, mostly cover crop establishment and repair work |
| Payload | Metering hopper with flow feedback, RTK, downward radar for height hold |
| Needs a visit first | Yes. The hopper aircraft has to be on site |
The problem
Cover crops go in late because the drill cannot get on wet stubble. Steep banks, wet hollows and awkward corners are either skipped or damaged by a machine that should not have been there. Reseeding a washed out patch means bringing a drill back for half a hectare.
How it works
| Step | What happens |
|---|---|
| Plan | The target area comes from a boundary you draw or from the gap map produced by an earlier flight |
| Load | The hopper is filled with seed or coated pods and calibrated for the rate you want |
| Broadcast | The drone flies the pattern at a fixed height and speed, holding the rate across the whole area |
| Verify | An establishment flight two to three weeks later counts what actually came up |
Seed is not a plant protection product, so the §18 prohibition that shapes targeted weed control does not apply here. Aviation rules still do, and a loaded hopper aircraft is usually over 25 kg, which puts the flight in the Specific category. See Regulation.
What you get
- As applied coverage map
- Rate achieved against rate planned
- Establishment count
- Reseeding list for the gaps
What the dashboard measures
- Area covered per flight
- Seed applied per hectare
- Establishment rate at the check flight
- Area unreachable by machine
Where it matters most
Winter wheat cover crops, grassland, reforestation, organic farms, contractors.
Build it
The only capability in the catalog that needs a genuinely different aircraft. Everything else is a camera on a scouting airframe; this one carries mass.
The mass problem, honestly
| Seed rate | 20 ha at that rate | What that means |
|---|---|---|
| 10 kg/ha, fine grass seed | 200 kg | 20 sorties with a 10 kg hopper |
| 25 kg/ha, mixed cover crop | 500 kg | 50 sorties, or a bigger aircraft |
| 200 kg/ha, cereal | 4,000 kg | Not a drone job. Use the drill |
Drone seeding wins on inaccessible ground and on small awkward areas, not on hectares. Price it per site visit and per hectare of difficult ground, not against a drill's day rate, and be blunt with customers who have done the arithmetic differently.
Hardware
| Item | Why | EU source | US source | Indicative |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Heavy lift airframe, 10 to 25 kg payload | The hopper and its contents | Foxtech frames, Tarot X8 | Foxtech | €1,500 to €6,000 |
| Turnkey alternative | Agras spreading system, already certified and supported | DJI Agras T25 / T50 via Solectric | Advexure | €12,000 to €30,000 |
| Metering hopper | Rate control is the whole capability | Foxtech seeder, or fabricate with a stepper-driven auger | RobotShop for motors | €600 to €3,000 |
| Flow feedback | So "as applied" is a measurement and not a plan | Load cell under the hopper, HX711 amplifier | SparkFun | €20 |
| Radar height hold | Holds the release height over a slope, which is what holds the rate | Ainstein US-D1 or LightWare | RobotShop | €200 to €600 |
| Batteries, 12S high capacity | Heavy lift is a battery problem before it is anything else | Tattu via Globe Flight | GetFPV | €300 to €700 each |
| Fast charger, generator | Turnaround decides hectares per day | Globe Flight | GetFPV | €500 to €2,000 |
The honest recommendation: buy the turnkey agricultural aircraft for this one. A DIY heavy lifter carrying 20 kg over a slope with people nearby is a different risk class from a 4 kg scouting drone, and the certified aircraft comes with a spread pattern somebody else has already characterised.
In-house software
| Stage | What we run | Licence | Replaces |
|---|---|---|---|
| Target area | Draw a polygon, or take the gap map from yield forecasting | this repo | |
| Pattern planning | Swath width from the calibrated spread pattern, with overlap, following terrain | own code | vendor mission planners |
| Rate control | Closed loop: metering rate versus ground speed, corrected in flight | own code on the flight controller companion | |
| As applied | Log rate, position and height at 5 Hz, rasterise into a coverage map | own code | |
| Verification | An establishment count flight, compared against the as-applied map | this repo |
Calibrate the spread pattern on the ground before the first job: fly at working height over a line of collection trays, weigh each tray, and fit the distribution. Everything about swath width and overlap comes from that curve. Repeat it per seed type, because a coated clover pod and a fine grass seed do not fly the same way.
Cost efficiency
- Rent, do not buy, until you have the hours. A seeding aircraft is used a few weeks a year. Contractors and Maschinenringe are the natural owners.
- The verification flight is a scouting flight. It costs almost nothing to add and it is the only proof the job worked. Include it in the price.
- Coated pods cost more per hectare and establish better on hard ground. Have the comparison ready, because customers will ask and the answer is site specific.
- Watch the batteries, not the airframe. On heavy lift, battery cycle life is the dominant running cost. Log cycles per pack from day one.