By DOUG SCHMITZ

Iowa Correspondent

IOWA CITY, Iowa — An Iowa City agricultural tech company last month became the first in the state to be approved by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to use drones for spraying farm chemicals and seed, with the first aerial applications to be for fungicide in corn and spreading cover crop seeds to wet areas.

“Our drone technology had been ready for a few months; we just needed the regulatory landscape to get sorted out,” said Michael Ott, CEO of Rantizo. “Building the technology is the easy part.”

With record levels of rainfall this year resulting in delayed corn planting, he said the approval for Rantizo’s drone-based services could not have come at a more beneficial time for Iowa farmers.

“Rain prohibited farmers from getting their corn crops in within the timeline they are used to, this year. When I last checked at the end of June, only 96 percent of corn crop had been planted, whereas typically they’re at 100 percent by this time.

“This will undoubtedly affect yields,” he said, adding the USDA recently lowered its national average corn yield projection to 166 bushels per acre.

Currently, aerial application in agriculture is done by manned aircraft (crop dusters). While drone application is also done aerially, this new technology required refinement, and often navigation of uncharted territory, throughout the regulatory path to viability.

“Our drone technology offers new improvements to agricultural crop applications such as increased field access (to the field at various times during the growing season), reduced headcount, and ability to spot-apply,” Ott said. “In other words, we can get in the fields to treat pests faster, with less people and in more effective ways that require less chemicals.”

According to the company, spraying by unmanned aerial vehicle, or UAV, provides a host of benefits to the applicator as a result of being able to apply chemical treatments in ways that were previously not possible, including reduced labor costs, reduced chemical exposure, better access, and improved yields.

Company officials said an off-the-shelf ag spraying drone with a 10-liter payload (such as Rantizo’s DJI Agras MG-1P), applying 3 gallons per acre, can cover approximately six acres per hour, including refueling time.

“Rantizo is currently developing technology and spraying techniques that will enable us to increase those numbers significantly,” Ott explained. “With our latest upgrades, it is now possible to cover more than 100 acres per day.”

Because of the planting delays caused by rainfall this spring, he said fungicide applications will be imperative. “The last thing corn growers need is to lose additional yield to pests and disease.

“Current solutions offer a suboptimal outcome at best. They require growers to spray their entire field. This gives options which are not cost-effective or ineffective altogether, so many take the chance and don’t spray anything at all,” he added.

He said fungicide applications are most effective within 72 hours of disease infection.

“This means if a corn crop is infected, the farmer is left to detect the infection and spray the field (often by a third-party custom applicator) within 72 hours,” he said. “Imagine this demand now across an entire state. Given current labor shortages in agriculture, this can present major challenges.”

Before Rantizo could legally operate its technology in the state of Iowa, the company needed its Part 107 and Part 137 certifications from the FAA, which included Section 44807 waivers to operate a drone for agricultural application of materials.

Craig Perry, Rantizo director of operations, said it received those certifications in May, with the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship (IDALS) approving the final component needed for pesticide application: Licensure.

“As the first company in the state to request this for drone operation, there was inherently a learning curve involved, but we are thankful to the IDALS for working with us on this and ultimately allowing us to pave a new path necessary for improved agricultural practices,” Perry said.

Three weeks after approval, the company announced it had received approval by the FAA to use the same technology in the state of Wisconsin.

“Since announcing our approval for drone spraying in Iowa, just a few weeks ago, the phone has simply not stopped ringing,” Ott said. “We’ve had requests for cover crop seeding, fungicide applications, even liquid copper sulfate spraying to control moss. We’ve had calls with growers in almost every state in the country at this point.”

With this latest approval in Wisconsin, Perry said the company is quickly gaining momentum throughout the Midwest and plans to continue to expand state by state via partnerships with neighboring departments of agriculture.

“Gaining our approval in Iowa first meant that we could not only serve our home state first, but quickly expand into other Midwestern states and perpetuate the regulatory approval process,” he noted. “We are seeing this with our approval into Wisconsin now, and will have several other states’ approval in the very near future.”