Whalen wraps up drone applications

STREATOR, Ill. — A morning of applying fungicide and insecticide on 160 acres of corn was already in the books, and Jay Whalen was rinsing out the drone to ready for another round that afternoon.

“We have a DJI T50 drone. It holds about 10 gallons of liquid. We’re spraying two gallons per acre and able to cover roughly five acres per fill with about a five-minute flight time,” he said.

“We’re applying fungicide and insecticide on the corn. We hope to get done with that by Friday, July 24, and then get the beans done over the weekend.”

With a 6 a.m. start, the 160 acres were done by lunch.

Scouting

Whalen, who farms alongside his father, John, and his sister, Melissa Whalen Smith, in Livingston and La Salle counties, keeps a close eye on his crop via scouting in making his application decision.

“We did apply fungicide on roughly 80 acres early at V6 stage. I had some corn-on-corn that had tar spot coming into it and anthracnose real bad. So, I sprayed that field and another field just to do a side-by-side comparison at V6. I’m doing the rest of the corn here now at brown silk,” he said.

“I’m going to scout again. Hopefully we can stay ahead the tar spot and so far the heat that came in a week ago seemed to really knock it and slow it down. So, I’m hoping to get this on this week and keep the tar spot and anything else at bay.

“I’ll definitely scout if we need to go again. The residual on the fungicide is roughly two to three weeks. After two weeks I’ll probably start scouting again.”

Coverage

In comparing coverage between using a drone and a ground application rig, Whalen sees differences and similarities.

“The rate with a drone isn’t as heavy as a ground rig, but it still to me looks like it’s doing a better job because the propellers push the liquid into the canopy and into the cover. It actually pushes it in and swirls it up into the leaves, under the leaves and all around it, and it seems like I’m getting better coverage in the crop with it,” he said.

The drone system sits on a flatbed semi trailer. It includes a tote with fresh water and an adjacent tote with premixed chemicals.

An industrial generator is located on the back of the trailer that provides 50 amp, 220 service to charge the batteries. The batteries are stored in the front of the trailer away from the liquid and take about eight minutes for a full charge.

Seeder

Once the fungicide application window closes, Whalen will switch to a dry box and broadcast spreader on the drone for cover crop seeding.

“I’m going to be applying all of my annual rye, radish and clover, and my oats, radish and clover on top of the soybeans with the drone by the end of August, beginning of September,” he said.

“This will be year-three for me seeding cover crops with the drone, but this will be the first year I’m doing it myself. I had it hired to be done in the past and have absolutely loved the results. It had a wonderful stand, and that’s another reason why we purchased the drone was mainly for cover crop seeding.”