“Hylio and MSU share common goals in advancing drone technology for agricultural applications,” Arthur Erickson said. “With our products and MSU’s programs, we can work together to pioneer best practices and teaching methods that will one day hopefully put this technology in the hands of a lot of American farmers.”

Labor — or more often a lack of it — is still the number one factor driving farmers’ adoption of automation and robotics solutions, according to panelists, demonstrators and casual attendees at last week’s FIRA USA show in California.

Mississippi State is partnering with John Deere through a master research agreement, establishing a framework for the university’s Agricultural Autonomy Institute to help develop technology to automate critical steps in the production of cotton and other crops.

Ecorobotix’s ARA ultra-high precision sprayer addresses this problem head-on, reducing drift by up to 95%, as shown in recent studies in Germany and the Netherlands.

For the 2024 growing season there were 50 robots in commercial use on farms in Indiana and Illinois monitoring more than 65 million plants.

To put that into perspective, these savings are the equivalent of 12 Olympic-sized swimming pools over an area larger than the state of Rhode Island.

Overall, 4,700 gallons of tank mix and $6,500 worth of herbicide product were saved across the 415 acres using the John Deere See and Spray™ Ultimate machine while maintaining clean fields through canopy formation.