KADS Application Blog – 04/22/2026
I finally got into my own fields for pre-emergence work. Yes, drone work before anything was visibly growing! Why Fly now? In this case I am creating a series of test strips on both corn and bean fields to personally verify the efficacy of Bio S.I. Agricultural Formula by applying 8oz of product with 2 gallons of water per acre.
I am also testing the settings on my Revolution Drones I-19, tracking down leaks on my trailer plumbing, and dialing in my trailer workflow.
This is the first official outing of my I-19 on this trailer. I bought the super structure from the son of a local farmer. Friends of mine helped me to get the generator and tank placed, and then I had it wired and we all contributed to many ideas on plumbing.
The total system, including the 2007 Chevy 3500, worked great. Until I was pulling back up a hill southwest of White Cloud Kansas – The truck has just about 230,000 miles on it, 5,000 or so are mine after purchasing it from a Missouri farmer. It didn’t shift well during this outing – the upshift to 3rd was already really slow and I temporarily lost 2nd gear after several large lurches. I took it in for scheduled maintenance and the oil that came out when they were preparing to install a new shift solenoid, was bright and sparkly! So… I’ll soon have a new (to me) transmission soon. Newish is good, right?
The I-19 worked super well for this kind of pre-emergence work. The Kansas spring wind grew, and I kept flying longer than I should have because this drone was so responsive despite gusty wind. The spray pattern was impacted at some points, but the drone was rock solid. The radar kept it at my selected height over the ground, it sprayed cleanly and laid down a blanket-like pattern, and it was fast and intuitive for both automated missions and hand-flying – I even flew a few funnels!
Each pair of test strips consists of two 100′ wide strips joined together at one end by a 20′ or 30′ wide strip, to make an oddly shaped U. This footage captures the drone doing a little dance bouncing between the boundaries of the connecting strip and proceeding onto the next leg of the U. Notice how it created efficiency by limiting direction change of drone at the last transition.
Using test strip to study the impact of this type of pre-emergence application is really interesting. I will monitor the test strips throughout the season and will also continue to fly this pattern and test drone settings to smooth things out and create more efficiency. Stay tuned!
