Could drones someday replace Colorado’s ‘cowboys’ of the sky? One crop duster doesn’t think so
So, Wicke and his team got a drone. This is not like one you can buy at your local electronics store. It’s seven feet tall and holds about 40 pounds.
Crop Air’s drone pilot Joseph Daviss has done some test runs with it. Flying it has taught him about how to apply properly before he’s up in a plane someday. And, it’s really precise.
“I can tell it how to fly, how fast to fly, what direction do I want to spray the field in, lay down waypoints exactly where I want them,” Daviss said.
Now, the company’s been able to treat fields it’s never done before. Some who are a bit price sensitive may balk a bit, but most customers are intrigued and like having it as another option.
“They see the drone, and they're like, ‘Wow, that's really amazing,’” Daviss said. “Around here, I think it’s going to explode.”
FAA drone registrations for agricultural use have recently skyrocketed. Investigate Midwest reports there’s around 1,000 registered pilots as of this year – with the majority getting approved last year. On a global scale, it’s booming. Drone manufacturer DJI reports there were 400,000 drones in the skies in 2024 specifically for agriculture.
Meanwhile, several ag leaders share that many crop duster pilots are retiring, and younger pilots are not hopping into the cockpit.
Part of that could be due to safety. The National Transportation Safety Board tracked three fatal deaths of crop dusters since 2020 in Colorado.
“We've seen a significant decline in crop dusters over the last 10 years,” Briana Layfield, president of Ag-Bee, a drone-only application company in California, said. “That's telling you, who's going to fill that void, right?”
Layfield said while drones have the capability, they still face a cost and capacity issue. Big drones are pricey, hard to transport, and only carry around 1/5 of what a plane can. The smaller ones are more affordable, but they would have to fill up even more.
“When you're dealing with those kind of volumes with a drone, you're limited on the amount of acreage that you can actually complete in a day,” she said. “That makes a huge difference on what we have to charge, how much can we get through.”
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