#AgDroneLife with Noah Poynter

*ALL IMAGES TAKEN BY NOAH POYNTER MEDIA*

With an early interest in video and media, Noah Poynter opened Noah Poynter Media, LLC while he was still an undergraduate student at Purdue University. Using a variety of cameras and video drones, he took images and created videos that captured Purdue life, local music festivals, small businesses and more as he pursued his degree in farm management, graduating in 2020.

As a third-generation farmer based in west central Indiana, Poynter decided to merge his background in media and drones to benefit his own farm as well as his surrounding farming community.

“Ag drones have been out since about 2018,” said Poynter, who bought his first video drone in 2015, and obtained his commercial drone license (a Part 107 FAA license) in 2017. “And, on the farm, drones are a valuable tool.”

On Poynter’s family farm, for example, he uses his agricultural drones to apply corn fungicide during the growing season. Prior to using drones to complete this time sensitive task, Poynter would need to contract with a helicopter or crop plane company that provides an aerial spray service. However, sometimes, their timing and availability doesn’t fit within a farm’s spraying schedule.

This is where agricultural drones come in.

“It’s benefited us because we get to spray based upon our own timing,” said Poynter. “Not only when the planes are available or can be contracted.”

Poynter points out that ag drones have solved other issues when it comes to aerial spraying. “A plane or helicopter can’t get into a lot of the tighter fields or fields with trees surrounding them or powerlines and things like that.” Ag drones are able to apply the necessary aerial applications unhindered by space constraints.

“Ag drones are definitely more customizable to a farm’s needs,” added Poynter, who currently flies two DJI Agras T40, which weigh about 220 pounds and have a 10 x 10 wingspan. “You can keep things under your own management and not have to outsource.”

While Poynter works with a variety of companies within the agricultural market and uses his ag drones for custom work on neighboring farmland, he also sells and services drones as DJI dealer, noting that many of the people buying drones from him are using them on their own farms.

“There’s not a big learning curve to drones, but it is time consuming,” said Poynter, especially when it comes to obtaining the necessary licenses to fly drones commercially and spray aerial chemicals. “A lot of people don’t want to do that. You have to cover your bases with the FAA, the state chemist office, get your insurance in line – it’s not just about buying the drones.”

Poynter is excited to see how ag drones – and drones in general – will evolve. He hopes one of the improvements will be increased battery power or a longer electric charge, depending on the model.

“While ag drones do have some limitations, they’re still new,” said Poynter. “The first drones that were large enough and efficient enough to be used for agriculture purposes only came out in the fall of 2021.”

With the evolution of agricultural drones moving toward more advanced precision agriculture application, crop imaging, environmental monitoring and more, they’re on-deck to revolutionize farming by increasing efficiency, sustainability and productivity while also decreasing operational costs for farmers.