Driving down the highway through June, July and August, it’s not uncommon to see crop duster planes swooping precariously close to fields of corn and soybeans. If you’ve seen them for yourself, its likely you wonder just how safe the process is. Riley Stukenholtz, along with his father Marc and sister Laney, is on his way to making crop spraying far safer.
Instead of flying in a plane, as Marc had done for some time, Riley has taken to spraying the fields with an unmanned drone. Made by Hylio, a company based in Texas, the drone is around 10 feet wide by 10 feet long and weighs around 165 pounds when it’s tank is full. Surprisingly, the machine can fold down into a four-by-four square when not in use. When it is being flown, the drone’s battery will last just long enough to empty its eight-gallon chemical tank and return to Riley, who then refills the tank and swaps out the battery before sending it back out again.
On a good day, Riley reports being able to spray around 120 acres of field, or around 25 acres per hour. “The weather plays a part in determining how well we can do, and the batteries charge noticeably slower in the heat,” Riley explained, “but we try to keep refill times under two minutes and have the drone in the sky as much as possible.”
