Seven Springs Farms consists of numerous farms located in Trigg, Christian, Cadlwell and Lyon Counties, and may be the first farm in the region to use drones, specifically the DJI drone that you can see in operation on YouTube. Bart Peters, the Finance Manager of Seven Springs Farms speaks with Kate Lochte on Sounds Good about the business decision to use drones.
Seven Springs Farms grows corn, soybean, wheat, burley tobacco and dark-fired tobacco over about 24,000 acres of land. Peters sayst they bought the drone last February and that it's been primarily helpful with getting up, over the top of the crops to look out over the field - identifying the level of quality of certain areas. Drones have an improvement over satellite imagery, he says, because of their ability to get beneath cloud cover. Seven Springs Farm typically flies around 50 to 100 feet, well beneath the FAA limit of 400 feet.
Their drone is a DJI Quadcopter with four propellers at the top that spin like a helicopter. It's about 14 inches long, 14 inches wide and weighs about 2 pounds. It has a camera suspended beneath it for photo and video imaging. Batteries last between 15 to 20 minutes between charges.
Endgadget Demonstrates DJI Phantom 2 Vision+ Drone:
Endgadget's DJI Phantom 2 Vision+ Footage:
