Catch crop mixtures
Catch crops

Aerial sowing

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Agricultural drones are becoming an ever-more popular component of the technological and digital revolution in agriculture, with a versatile array of uses. One of their key applications is broadcast seeding from the air. A pioneering technological concept?

Drones in agriculture

 

Aerial sowing of catch crops offers economic advantages as well as considerably more effective utilisation of the growing season.

A field test of drone seeding

 

Aerial seeding using drones represents an intelligent combination of elements of digital smart farming with timely, site-specific aspects of crop production and modern seed technology. From catch crop sowing to grassland reseeding and underseeding, aerial seeding has many potential applications. In four pilot operations in Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg and North Rhine-Westphalia, Freudenberger tested catch crop sowing by drone in summer 2021 through a collaboration with Schmidt Solutions.

 

The idea

 

Essentially, the new aerial sowing concept is based on a pre-harvest seeding approach. Around 2-4 weeks before the cereal harvest, when the flag leaf clearly droops toward the ground, the catch crop is sown into the field of standing cereal. It’s high impact, environmentally friendly and low cost, plus it saves an additional tractor pass over the field.