There has been a lot said about the potential of drones to aid ag work. Simon Blakey is so convinced he has set up a contracting business to offer such services.
Opportunities are emerging in niche agricultural and industrial markets as well as for mainstream spreading and spraying
The specialist qualifications and equipment needed favour a contractor-led operation which can dovetail with related services such as sampling, mapping and agronomy advice. Contractor Simon Blakey, who founded BP Agservices in 2024, explains: “I was an assistant farm manager in Norfolk on a large arable farm. We were struggling with spraying in some conditions and I was thinking about starting my own business.”
His first venture was into soil sampling, of which he still does about 5-6,000ha/year.
“But I wanted to diversify the business, and I wrote down all the problems I could think of in agriculture: weather conditions, shorter spray windows, difficulty travelling, soil structure, increased rainfall etc and possible solutions for that,” recalls the budding contractor who was well aware of another aspect, countering the falling profit margins in agriculture. “So I was also considering equipment that I could also use in other industries.”
Research led him to drone applications and thence to distributor and training provider AutoSpray Systems, with whom he undertook pilot training and the operator’s test.
“I purchased a drone at the end of 2024, and to start with found that it was a hard sell to farmers. But I soon picked up a good round of cover cropping work. This involves using the drone to put cover crops into standing crops pre-harvest, so once harvest is over, the customer is three weeks ahead with establishment.”
By attending local shows, he connected with more farmers and developed the market for his services.
Variety is key
The work rates he can offer are attractive, he adds: “In the North Yorkshire Wolds we were covering 86ha in 11 hours – I calculated that was the same as you could do with a 6.0m drill in the time frame.”
A strong local focus on protected crops means that there is a demand for spraying greenhouse shading products and for glass cleaning, although Simon comments that it is a competitive market. Solar panel cleaning is another possible use for the drone in farming’s quieter periods.
Wet conditions this winter played in his favour with manganese spraying proving a popular service.
“We can map with XAG software and pick out sandy hilltops or less efficient areas rather than spraying the whole field, which has been really good this year.”
Simon comments that he has had a surprisingly good reaction from more traditional farms which he would not necessarily have expected to embrace new technology. Word of mouth has been the most powerful marketing tool, he reckons. “Once you do a good job on one farm, the farmer talks to his neighbour, and it just goes on from there.”
Drone applications are a neat fit with the soil sampling work, allowing him to create variable rate maps which can be used to control the drone. He can also upload farmers’ own maps and data.
“One of the farms we worked on at Doncaster had asked their agronomist to map the areas using live images from the company’s satellite technology, creating a shapefile of locations across the farm which needed spraying,” he explains. “Because we weren’t having to walk around these areas, it was all uploaded, ready to go and we covered 40 hectares a day of ‘patchwork’ applications, with zero crop damage.”
Growing the workforce
He has recently taken on his first employee to assist with business growth.
“One future area I’m looking at is bracken control, as soon as the product is approved for this type of application, and there’s considerable potential in the Yorkshire Dales. With two drones you could cover huge areas on that job,” says Simon, who is not afraid to think outside the box. “We are still a bit limited on the products we can apply, but there’s always opportunity for work which complements the drone. I’ve just bought a remote-control forestry mulcher for example.”
In the meantime, the new addition to the team will help with drone operations while learning the scope of the work, ahead of undergoing training with AutoSpray.
Simon has an authorisation for Beyond Visual Line of Sight Operation (BVLOS), where an additional operator observes parts of the work site that the main operator can’t see due to obstructions or topography.
“A lot of locations need a ‘spotter’ anyway – if there’s a main road or footpath for example, to ensure that the drone keeps 50m away from ‘uninvolved people’. Previously I’ve relied on farm staff to help, but it will be much better to keep it in house and have someone who knows what they are doing with radio communications.”
He adds that for bracken spraying, where the undulating terrain often makes it difficult to see the drone, BVLOS procedures are going to be a ‘game changer’.
Tool of choice
Simon uses the XAG P100 Pro drone, one of the largest in the UK. “I looked at other brands, but I believe that it is the best in terms of build quality and software.”
He adds that software updates come through regularly from the Chinese manufacturer.
“They are constantly improving, and they listen to feedback from the pilots as well. We work closely with AutoSpray which is also an XAG distributor.”
The XAG P100 Pro has a 50-litre spray tank and 60-litre granule hopper and operates via two batteries, which last around 12 minutes.
“Batteries charge up in about eight minutes, and I travel with three sets: there’s always one fully charged, one charging, and one on the drone. So, when it lands for a refill, I change the batteries, and off it goes again.” He says that swapping between tanks is swift and straightforward: “Two clamps, one cable and if you’ve got the spray tank on, there’s two pipes to take off.”
For contracts such as fertiliser applications on Christmas trees, this comes in handy, he points out. “I spray liquid bio nutrients, but then also spread granular fertilisers, as a slow-release feed, so I’m swapping throughout the job.”
He suggests that while windy conditions are less of an issue than with a smaller drone, the limitation is spray drift.
“But we can still go in 12mph winds like PWM boom sprayers can, by similarly controlling droplet size and flying slower which blows the product down into the crop for better coverage.”
This has been successfully proven when applying pod stick on oilseed rape. “Hopefully we will soon be able to apply glyphosate to oilseed rape. It’s another ideal job for two drones as you can go through the field without flattening tramlines or damaging crop. With two drones you could probably cover 70ha a day, which would be enough to stay ahead of the combines.”
The KP index – effectively a measure of solar storms – is another natural phenomenon to keep an eye on.
“Geomagnetic activity can potentially interfere with the signal between the controller and the drone, making the flight unsafe. That can be a difficult one to explain to a farmer – that when weather conditions are good, the KP index can be too high to fly!”
Weather and KP index are monitored by specialist apps, both as part of the pre-flight assessment and throughout the flight.
“Pre-flight assessments are a big part of the job, from the risk assessment when we arrive on site on the morning to working around airfields, roads, and no fly zones,” points out Simon. “It can be up to an hour’s worth of planning even before you get on the site, including method statements, applying for approvals from airfields in the area etc. Some farmers will say that it’s an expensive operation, but they don’t see that side of things.”
Another challenge is that when drawing boundaries with a tractor-based GPS, low branches or power lines in the field are not accounted for and need to be mapped.
“We can’t generally fly under power lines – when spraying, the drone is 3.5m above the ground so it’s a bit close. When spreading cover crops or fertiliser, we can actually fly above them, because we’ll be 10 metres away from the wires.”
Jane Carley
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