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Australian Seeds His Sunflower With Drone
Wednesday, January 1, 2025
filed under: Planting Systems
Roger Woods Owns & Operates Drone Commander Australia
Photo Credit: Georgie Hewson, ABC - Australia
A farmer in the ‘Land Down Under’ has gone ‘Airborne’ when it comes to seeding sunflower.
For the past four years, Roger Woods of Cambooya, located in the southern part of Queensland, Australia, has used a commercial drone to seed, fertilize and spray sunflower.
Woods, who grew up in the farming area of Gunnedah, New South Wales, joined the Australian Army after high school and ended up flying Blackhawk helicopters for 20 years. After retiring from the Army, he flew EMS helicopters — and then bought his Queensland farm and got into flying drones as a hobby to share with his son.
“That progressed to me training people to get their remote pilot license — and, ultimately, procuring ag drones to use on my farm,” Woods notes. “Once I had a handle on the ag drones, I took it commercial.”
Woods’ drone journey took flight in the establishment of Drone Commander Australia, a rapidly expanding company whose clients now include large property developers, regional councils, agricultural specialists, commercial farmers, hobby farmers and more. Among the ag-oriented services offered by Drone Commander are weed spraying, seed spreading, crop and pasture fertilization, granular product spreading, pest bait spreading — and, interestingly, the spreading of human (and occasionally animal) ashes on private land or in the ocean. Among the agricultural crops the company has seeded via its DJl T20 drones (other than sunflower) are wheat, barley and lucerne.
Drone Commander had already spread fertilizer and sprayed many sunflower acres prior to the decision to give seeding a try. One issue they’d dealt with on an all-too-regular basis was tourists walking into the crops, “even while we were spraying,” Woods recalls.
But Woods made lemonade from that lemon. He decided to try seeding sunflower with a drone, with the field then serving as a money-making attraction for tourists to visit.
The concept called for spreading the sunflower onto a tilled 24-hectare (60-acre) field, and then raking (harrowing) in the seed. While there were doubters it would work, “the 24 hectares I planted came up spectacularly,” Woods says. The drones then were used to apply fertilizer and insecticide, and the crop grew very satisfactorily — and, in the process, attracted numerous tourists from nearby cities.
Woods has continued to seed sunflower with his drones each year since then. “We have done twice-yearly crops (eight hectares) for tourism only, letting them cut unlimited ’flowers for their entry fee,” he relates. “This makes us about $8,000 AuD per hectare — much better than the average $1,200 AuD per hectare we’d make from harvesting and selling the seeds.”
Though the seed emergence pattern is obviously not nearly as consistently spaced as it would be with a regular sunflower planter, Woods says he’s been pleased with the results — especially since crop yield and seed size is not the top priority with his “tourist ’flowers.” Actually, he adds, the vast majority of plants emerge in the furrows created from harrowing, and “it almost looks like a planter might have been involved.
“We are blessed with a volcanic black soil vertisol, so we really can’t fail,” he adds.
The seeding rate for his first crop in 2021 was around 45,000 per hectare (just over 18,000 per acre). He has increased the rate since then. “This season we are increasing to 60,000 seeds per hectare and spreading in two runs, at a 90-degree heading change between the two,” Woods says. “With this, we aim to increase density, decrease plant height (better for tourism photos, particularly children) and improve density consistency.”
When he does harvest the mature sunflower, Woods uses a Sullivan reel attachment, which works at the combine’s ground speed to help prevent blockages and reduce seed shattering. “At worst, it is no harder than any cross-row harvesting when you need to do so in a normally planted crop,” he says. “Losses are increased, but not dramatically.”
Moving forward, Woods plans to seed his tourist sunflower so that it ends up in full bloom around Easter and the two-week school holiday period that surrounds the holiday. “The weather is pleasant then, the insects have abated — and the snakes have departed,” he quips. “There is also much less summer weed competition with a February planting.” He has transitioned to a Clearfield® system, planting a Clearfield hybrid and then adding a cover crop of Clearfield barley.
“Sunflower is a key and enjoyable part of our business,” Woods observes.
Roger Woods’ daughter Natalie Cran, her husband James and daughter Clara are part of the family business.
Overall, though, the Australian drone pioneer still believes drones in Australian agriculture have not yet come at all close to their potential. “It is more common to see ag drone startups fail; and where farmers buy their own drones, they often end up broken and sitting in a shed,” he remarks. Woods also rates drones as only “average” at spraying — “and, unfortunately getting worse, not better, with both DJl and Xag taking away the option to fit our own nozzles, forcing us to rely own their CDAs.” In response, he has been communicating with a Texas-based company “whose drones are developing well and still take Teejets.”
“While I am underwhelmed with spray quality from the current generation of DJI and Xag drones, they are excellent at spreading,” Woods observes. “Better than anything else by a long way, in my opinion and that of many of our clients.” — Don Lilleboe