The same platform, set up 16 different ways
A wheat field and a hop yard have almost nothing in common except that both are flown. Each operation below has its own flight calendar, its own instruments and its own set of things worth looking for.
Arable
Combinable crops and root crops, flown in stages across a long season.
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Winter wheat and barley
The long season, flown in stages
Establishment gaps, patchy weed pressure, septoria risk and a nitrogen plan that has to follow the field, not a flat rate.
Blocks of 10 to 120 hectares, flown as one route.
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Maize
Early weeks decide it, and birds finish it
Establishment counts, early weed competition, corn borer pressure and flocks working the cobs at ripening.
Blocks of 5 to 80 hectares, with deterrence stations on the blocks under pressure.
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Oilseed rape
Uneven from the day it goes in
Patchy establishment, flea beetle damage, and a canopy that needs measuring before the nitrogen decision is worth anything.
Blocks of 10 to 100 hectares.
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Sugar beet
Where spot spraying pays first
Wide rows and slow early growth make beet the crop where weed mapping and spot treatment save the most.
Blocks of 10 to 80 hectares.
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Potatoes
Blight, irrigation and a crop you cannot see
Blight surveillance on a tight cadence, irrigation uniformity from thermal imaging, and a yield estimate before lifting.
Blocks of 5 to 60 hectares, usually irrigated.
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Organic farms
Mechanical weeding needs a map more than anyone
Without herbicides, weed location decides where the hoe goes, when, and how many passes the field actually needs.
Blocks of 5 to 100 hectares.
Permanent crops
Vines, trees and canes, where the same plants carry every decision forward.
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Vineyards
Steep ground, tight rows, high value
Vigour mapping by row, downy and powdery mildew surveillance, frost pockets, and the terrain where drone application is actually permitted.
Parcels of 0.5 to 20 hectares, including slopes machinery cannot work.
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Orchards
Count the fruit, protect the blossom
Fruit counting for the pack house booking, blossom frost protection, tree by tree health, and birds at ripening.
Blocks of 1 to 40 hectares.
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Soft fruit and berries
High value per square metre, short windows
Picking forecasts for labour planning, irrigation uniformity under tunnels, bird pressure and frost on early varieties.
Blocks of 0.5 to 15 hectares, open field and tunnels.
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Hops
A wall of canopy you cannot see into
Downy mildew and spider mite surveillance from above, plus vigour mapping across a trellis that hides everything at ground level.
Yards of 2 to 50 hectares.
Protected crops
Glass and plastic, where nothing is left to the weather.
Grassland and livestock
Silage, grazing and the wildlife obligation that comes with a mower.
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Grassland and silage
Search before the mower moves
Thermal fawn searches ahead of first cut, sward quality mapping, and reseeding where the ground has gone back.
Fields of 2 to 40 hectares, flown at dawn.
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Dairy and grazing livestock
The outlying block, checked every morning
Daily head counts, fence line inspection and flagged animals, without the drive to every outlying block.
Grazing platforms of 20 to 300 hectares, docks placed by battery range.
Operators
Contractors, cooperatives and restoration projects running many holdings at once.
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Agricultural contractors
A service you can resell by the hectare
Add scouting, wildlife searches and prescription maps to the work you already do, without buying a fleet.
Portfolios of 500 to 5,000 hectares across many holdings.
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Cooperatives and large estates
One picture across every member holding
Fleet coverage across scattered blocks, comparable numbers between holdings, and reporting that rolls up cleanly.
2,000 to 40,000 hectares across scattered member blocks.
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Reforestation and land restoration
Plant the slope nobody can walk
Terrain mapping, seed pod broadcast onto ground machines cannot reach, and establishment counts that prove it worked.
Sites of 1 to 500 hectares, including terrain with no vehicle access.
Your rotation is not on this list
Most of it still applies. Tell us the crop and the hectares and we will say plainly which capabilities earn their keep and which do not.