Season 1, Episode 11
Seeing Whole Fields: How Scouting Drones Help Growers Make Smarter Decisions
Drone technology is an innovative, powerful management tool in modern agriculture, but its value goes far beyond spraying. In this episode of Renk Seeds of Innovation, Max Renk sits down with Karl Bobholz and Tucker Johansen to explore how scouting drones are changing the way fields are evaluated, managed, and understood.
Their conversation explores how our team at Renk Seed uses scouting drones throughout the growing season to monitor emergence, plant health, weed pressure, and field variability across entire fields, not just a few visible areas. Karl and Tucker also discuss how repeated drone flights and NDVI imagery provide consistent, reliable information that supports smarter agronomic decisions, reduces unnecessary input costs, and helps improve ROI for growers.
Max, Karl, and Tucker reveal why Renk Seed believes in using and sharing these tools with growers. We want our growers to succeed in the fields. Using scouting drone technology can give growers the confidence and clarity to manage their acres more efficiently, helping them see stronger yields season after season.
Spray drones vs. Scouting drones
Tucker Johansen explains the difference between the two types of drones currently being used in the agriculture industry. A spray drone, in his mind, is like an extension of a farmer’s hands. It puts down the spray application the farmer has chosen and solves an issue. On the other hand, Tucker thinks about a scouting drone as an extension of a farmer’s brain. It gathers data to help make educated decisions allowing farmers to implement various solutions for potential increase in yields at harvest.
Power of early-season scouting and whole field coverage
Max Renk asks Tucker about early season scouting and “why that’s important to us with our drone?” In response, Tucker shares that scouting drones do a really good job showing stands. Renk Seed has used compatible software such as Pix4D Fields and Drone Deploy Processing to provide detailed maps revealing misses, bad emergence, or compaction areas. The software stitches together the hundreds of pictures taken during flight and combines them into a map. This gives the grower an overall picture of the field as a whole.
Drone data and software make field analysis easier and precise
In Karl Bobholz’s experience, drone data is a tool for better acre management. By having good data come into the pipeline, he explains, you then have a better understanding of product performance. Through the use of a scouting drone you can capture plant health and see agronomics such as green snap, root lodging, and stalk strength.
Another area many of the new drone technology includes is weed management. This allows growers to take the scouting information and turn it into an actionable plan. Most growers currently spray twice: pre-emergence and post-emergence. Typically, post-emergence is about weed patches that show up or high weed banks in a known area. “This technology allows you to reduce the spray across the whole field,” Karl notes. He continues, “Drone technology assists in reducing costs of post-emergence spray across the whole field.”
Drone technology assists in reducing costs of post-emergence spray across the whole field.
Micronutrients or fertility needs are other insights a grower can gather from the scouting drone data. Karl mentions that you have to know what’s happening first, then you can create the precise spraying plans. Max observes that by taking stock of what you have on the acres during the season, you can potentially save on the cost of your chemistry.
NDVI imagery value for crop health
In the middle of the season, V5 stage for corn, is where Renk Seed begins to utilize NDVI or VARI to scout smarter. In layman’s terms, Tucker explains, this technology gathers all the invisible reflected light from the plants and puts it into a measure of crop vigor and health. The software creates a color scale making the differences easier to see through gradual changes. You can set the color scale to indicate vigor and the health of the plants. This knowledge is very valuable at the V5 stage.
The eye in the sky helps manage acres
The scouting drone allows you to add another layer to your acre management. Karl highlights the current uses of data inside and out of planters. The scouting drones compliment the work by helping create spray maps, finding tile lines during wet spring times, and spotting areas that could benefit from tile.
He mentions that if you think about this as a long term investment for your operation you can better understand how products are performing on your acres. It doesn’t matter which product you planted. But it does matter how that product is reacting to stress and allows a farmer to manage more effectively for the stresses that show up.
Also, as autonomous becomes more commonplace within the equipment, the scouting drones can help. The new scouting drones have RTK built into them, which allows you to create the RTK boundaries for your acres and equipment.
Having this data at your disposal will allow you to compare season to season at the critical growing stages.
Repeatable flights increase data reliability
Flight missions can be saved easily, according to Tucker. By repeating that same flight, you create much more reliable data sets to evaluate the current season and for seasons to come. He lists the timeline for a single season as emergence, weed eruption, V5 and after tassel (for corn), and end of season right before you combine it off. Having this data at your disposal will allow you to compare season to season at the critical growing stages.
Instead of spending hours upon hours walking your acres, Tucker points out that you can see about 160 acres in a matter of 30 minutes. We think everyone can agree that this is a better use of time than windshield farming at 55 mph or only walking your favorite spots.
Conclusion
Renk Seed is a data-driven company. We rely on cooperative growers to help us build the data we share with you on our website for head-to-head comparisons. Sharing our knowledge on scouting drones is an example of the value we place on our relationship. We want you to farm stronger and grow with us in knowledge.
Are you already using drones or advanced scouting tools on your fields, or is it something you’re curious about exploring this year? We’d love to hear from you and answer any questions you may have. You can find us on one of our social media channels: FB, Insta, X or LinkedIn. And, listen to the full episode on whichever streaming platform you prefer.
