From Back Injury to Drone Empire | The DroneOn Show Episode 12

Episode 12 • June 27, 2025 • 01:15:21
From Back Injury to Drone Empire | The DroneOn Show Episode 12
The DroneOn Show
From Back Injury to Drone Empire | The DroneOn Show Episode 12

Jun 27 2025 | 01:15:21

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Show Notes

In this episode of The DroneOn Show, Mike sits down with Jesse Bailey of South Alabama Drone Services at a drone convention. A multi-generational farmer sidelined by a back injury, Jesse turned to drones, spraying 9,000 acres in year one and scaling to 30,000 with two pilots. From fine-tuning 32-foot swaths for peanuts to nailing 500-acre herbicide jobs within a tenth of a pound, he shares hard-earned tips on avoiding striping and handling chemicals safely as a cancer survivor. A must for ag drone hustlers!

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Episode Transcript

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hey, folks, welcome back to the Drone on show. It's Mike. Today we have another episode where I was on the road at the drone convention, and I sat down with lots of different applicators at that show, just having casual conversations with them on how they got started and where they're at now. And so today is another one of those episodes where I'm on the road and having a conversation with another spray drone business. Let's get into it. All right, guys, welcome back to the podcast. So we're talking. I'm gonna have you guys both introduce yourself and then we're gonna roll right into it. [00:00:32] Speaker B: So, Jesse Bailey, South Alabama Drone Service. I started this a couple years ago. Grew up in Alabama, multi generational farm family. My son will grow crops on the grounds that my grandfather grew crops on if he decides to. [00:00:46] Speaker C: And then I'm Henry Bell and I'm his. One of his pilots. Pilots. [00:00:52] Speaker A: Okay, so a worker or a pilot for South Alabama drone Tours. Cool. All right, so we're going to hop right into it. So many generations of agricultural background. [00:01:02] Speaker B: That's right. Okay, so grew up on a farm. We had cattle row crop, grew peanuts, cotton, soybeans, grain, sorghum, a little bit of everything, a lot of beef cattle. And then went away to college, started a career as a mechanic. Come back and herniated a disc in my back and had to find something else to do. Couldn't turn wrenches on heavy equipment anymore, so got into spray drones. Literally a month before I herniated a disc in my back. [00:01:30] Speaker A: Wow. Okay, so got into spray drones. How did you get into spray drones? [00:01:34] Speaker B: We needed it for our own farm. We needed it to do our own stuff. [00:01:37] Speaker A: But how'd you know how it works? What type of research did you do? [00:01:42] Speaker B: Saw a couple of videos online. [00:01:44] Speaker A: Saw, so Taylor's agrospray videos. [00:01:47] Speaker B: Yeah, I think it was some of his. And just pictures and videos on Facebook, a few different things. Didn't know much about it at all. Googled agrispray, found a phone number, called it. It was not agrispray, it was somebody kind of. The name was like one letter off. And they were also from Missouri. And they come down, they sold us a drone. [00:02:08] Speaker D: What year was this? [00:02:09] Speaker B: Three years ago. So 22. [00:02:11] Speaker A: No way. Okay, so this individual knew what the Agrispray was building and then got you to click on their website. Oh, my gosh. [00:02:23] Speaker B: And we got the phone number, called him up, said, hey, we want a drone. Send us a quote. Sent us a quote, sent him a check. He. He Flew in and we demo. We'd set everything up. I had no experience flying drones other than like a camera drone. [00:02:37] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:02:37] Speaker B: And got everything going and he disappeared. He's supposed to spend two days with us. He spent like three hours. [00:02:43] Speaker A: Okay. [00:02:44] Speaker B: And left. And then he went ahead. Like I was saying, he was supposed to set our 44807 up, our 137 up. All this stuff, I get all these documents in and it's all bogus. It's all doctor. [00:02:57] Speaker D: How did you know it was doctor Up? [00:02:59] Speaker B: I got set up as with Agri Spray as a dealer that next year. And I sent it all to Charlie. And I'm like, hey man, just look at this stuff and tell me, know what I'm missing. Is it right? And he's like, sorry, man, but you got to start over. Like, this is all junk. It's no good. I didn't know. Not even an end number? I didn't know we had to have an end number. I didn't have an end number. [00:03:20] Speaker A: And. And you were spraying. Yep. Just ripping. Yeah. Cool. Cool. How many acres did you spray? [00:03:27] Speaker B: Like 9,000. [00:03:31] Speaker A: With one drone? [00:03:32] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:03:33] Speaker A: No way. [00:03:33] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:03:33] Speaker A: First year, 9,000 acres, one drone. It had to be flattering. A40. [00:03:38] Speaker B: It was a T40. Yeah. With one drone by myself. [00:03:41] Speaker A: Tell me more like, how'd you do 9,000 acres? [00:03:45] Speaker B: We started spraying our own peanuts. And there was a line of people that heard from the cafe down the road that they're spraying with a drone down there. And by lunchtime, there was a line of trucks down the road parked in the road, watching. Can you come do mine? I'm like, guess so. [00:04:03] Speaker A: No way. [00:04:04] Speaker B: Can you come do mine? Can you come do mine? It turned into like a three week long list of can you do this? Can you do that? [00:04:10] Speaker A: Okay. And so you're. You're just figuring this drone thing out. What type of trailer setup did you have at that time? [00:04:16] Speaker B: I went to a local trailer. Like the thing on the side of the road? [00:04:20] Speaker A: Yep. So just made something up. [00:04:21] Speaker B: Just made something up. I grabbed some tanks off some of our old equipment. They were like 300 gallon elliptical tanks. And a tote, like it was the old chemical tote for fresh water. And I went to stranger and got me a pump and we started hodgepodging stuff from leftover sprayers. [00:04:36] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:04:37] Speaker B: And it worked. I mean, it worked fine. It's suspended chemical. It mixed up. Well, I can measure out real well now. I. I had to reiterate, reinvent the wheel two or three times. We still reinvent the Trailer every time, you know, every couple months, we're like, we won't change this. We'll do that. And now I think we're on trailer like number four that we build ourselves. [00:04:56] Speaker A: Okay, so the 9,000 acres, was it mostly flat? Is that what it is down here in Alabama? This flat? [00:05:02] Speaker B: Mostly it's going to be 40 acres, 60 acres. A big field around here is 100. That's a big field. [00:05:07] Speaker A: Okay, so 40 acres would be nice. We don't even have those. If it's, if it's a 20 acre. [00:05:11] Speaker B: Field, we're like, yeah, we have some of those. 217. [00:05:14] Speaker A: Okay. Wow. [00:05:15] Speaker B: I sent Henry to do a six acre field yesterday. Okay. [00:05:18] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, that's kind of standard where we're from. Six to ten acre fields. Yeah. So Henry, you're flying for him now. So you, you flew by yourself for the first year? [00:05:27] Speaker B: Yeah, almost two years. [00:05:29] Speaker A: Almost two year. When did you bring Henry in and why did you bring him in? [00:05:32] Speaker B: April of last year. Right. [00:05:34] Speaker C: I started in April and I didn't even know Jesse before, but I knew his dad and I met him and he. I was looking for a job and he called me and it worked pretty well. [00:05:45] Speaker A: Did you have your part 107 at that time? [00:05:47] Speaker C: I didn't have it when I started. [00:05:48] Speaker A: Okay. Pretty easy to get. Yeah. Like, some guys are freaked out about getting it. I'm like, if you study three, four days hard, yeah. You should be able to pass it on. Day five. That's usually what I tell them. [00:06:00] Speaker B: Yeah, I like to tell people a couple hours at night or before, while you're eating breakfast or whatever, get some stuff out and look at it. [00:06:06] Speaker A: I tell people, just sit down, just hammer it. Like you'd be going to school, do it, you know, eight hours or whatever. But no, that's probably a better way to do it. [00:06:14] Speaker B: Well, I mean, I really think it depends on the person's attention. It, you know, span. [00:06:19] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I can't for sure. [00:06:22] Speaker B: Yeah. I'm like a squirrel. I gotta find something to do something different every 30 seconds. [00:06:26] Speaker D: Yeah, I was different. I sat down for like four days and just watched a shift. Ton of videos. [00:06:30] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:06:30] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:06:31] Speaker D: Went and took the test. Failed. Failed two questions. Yeah, so I overstudied by a lot. But. [00:06:36] Speaker B: So the only ones that really got me is. Was the towers. There was like one map with like towers like, like outside of New Orleans. Like, how does this even apply to a drone? This is like class B airspace. And you're asking me about a tower? We're Never going to be here. [00:06:49] Speaker A: Yep. No. [00:06:50] Speaker D: Most of the stuff doesn't even apply to. [00:06:51] Speaker A: Yeah, but yeah, it does. But it, I. I think it's still valuable information that if somebody's flying, drones should know. [00:06:56] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:06:57] Speaker A: Okay, so you started off with one. How many do you guys have now? [00:07:00] Speaker B: It's a revolving door of between three to five. [00:07:04] Speaker A: And why, why, why does it revolve between three and five? [00:07:07] Speaker B: People show up with checks and they. [00:07:09] Speaker A: Want to check, they buy it. No way. [00:07:12] Speaker B: Okay, so you, so we sell dji drones O you do, you know, somebody sees a spraying and like, hey, we need a drone. And I'm like, well, I got one that's, you know, got a thousand acres on it. We opened it up two weeks ago. And I see, you know, and the registration supplied for all that stuff and I just pass it off to them. And when the registration form comes in, we do the short form and flip it to them and they're good, you know, Nice. And that also gives me an avenue. I try to do this all without borrowing any money. So I bought everything up until recently, straight cash. But we're trying to grow, so. [00:07:46] Speaker A: Yep. So that was going to be a question I was going to have for you when you first started. Were you able to make cash or a loan? Because a lot of people are coming in and buying a lot of money or, you know, buying a lot of equipment costing a lot of money. And in the beginning, the banks didn't know how to loan on this, but they still don't. [00:08:04] Speaker B: They're getting better, but they're getting better. So I started with about $47,000 in cash. [00:08:10] Speaker A: Okay. [00:08:10] Speaker B: My first T40 and the FAA regulation package. I was sold. It was like 36,000, 37,000. And then I went and bought a $4,500 trailer. I got some tanks off of old equipment. I got some fittings from the John Deere store. I plumbed everything up. I bought me an inductor tank. And then that was pretty much. It started out cash. [00:08:31] Speaker A: Okay. [00:08:32] Speaker B: And so I was about 47 in it and I used my 22 year old pickup truck, which Henry still drives. [00:08:38] Speaker A: Okay. [00:08:39] Speaker B: And it's 24, 25 years old now. [00:08:41] Speaker A: But anyway, dude, that truck's paid. Paid for itself. [00:08:43] Speaker B: Yeah, it's like on a second transmission and built the engine myself. [00:08:48] Speaker A: And how many acres are you guys doing now? Like if you did 9,000 first year, let's get. I'm gonna guess I. Geez. 9,000 first year, 20. 50,000, 60,000. [00:08:59] Speaker B: The goal this year is 50,000 acres. Jeez. [00:09:03] Speaker D: With two guys. [00:09:03] Speaker B: Two guys? [00:09:04] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:09:04] Speaker B: That's impressive. We have a ground guy that helps us, but he's still in school. He still. He does his school. [00:09:09] Speaker A: He does thousand acres with two guys. And how many trailer setups? Two or one? [00:09:13] Speaker B: One. We have one trailer and one truck and everything. We have a spray system on a truck that's mounted to that old F250 that we can land on top of for doing small jobs. And then we take a trailer for big jobs. [00:09:24] Speaker A: Okay. [00:09:25] Speaker B: So the trailer holds a thousand gallons. We have a 7 or 525 freshwater tank and 525 or 520 mix tank. 525 gallon mix tank. And then we have a 65 gallon inductor on there. And then I'll stage a water wagon. Thousand gallon water wagon if we need that. So additional water. We can stage it wherever and. But no, we just go crank it out, man. [00:09:50] Speaker A: Yeah, that's cool. How can that is cranking it out with you guys? I would say, how can you afford to hire a pilot full time? Because isn't drone spraying in this area seasonal, kind of like it is in Ohio? [00:10:02] Speaker B: No, we. First spray day this year was January 2nd. The last spray day would be about December 15th. [00:10:08] Speaker A: Oh, geez. Jason, what are we doing? [00:10:10] Speaker B: Don't think about moving. [00:10:12] Speaker A: No, we'll be here next year. [00:10:16] Speaker B: What? Now? I'm not saying it's like, you know. Yeah, it's not, but. Yeah, there's things to do every week. There's something to do every week. [00:10:25] Speaker D: Wow. [00:10:26] Speaker B: Just about every week. [00:10:27] Speaker A: That is impressive. And that's why Henry's flying drones. [00:10:30] Speaker C: And I have my own business, too, in the espe. It's really in the winter, so I just. [00:10:34] Speaker A: What's that business? [00:10:35] Speaker C: I bag, bag corn and feed and seed and stuff like that. [00:10:38] Speaker A: Okay. Sell it to the deer hunters or what? Okay. [00:10:41] Speaker B: Exactly. [00:10:42] Speaker A: Are there deer down here? [00:10:43] Speaker C: Yeah. I sold over 25,000 bags this past. [00:10:47] Speaker A: 25,000 bags. [00:10:48] Speaker B: And he handbagged it all. [00:10:49] Speaker D: Holy smokes. [00:10:51] Speaker A: Wait, I'm not gonna do the numbers on that, but if you got $5 a bag. [00:10:55] Speaker C: I get more than that. [00:10:56] Speaker D: But he probably gets like 10 bucks. [00:10:57] Speaker B: 750. [00:10:58] Speaker C: Yeah, about 750. [00:11:01] Speaker A: Nuts knuckled out. [00:11:02] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:11:03] Speaker A: Go, dude. [00:11:04] Speaker B: During the winter. [00:11:05] Speaker A: Figure it out. [00:11:05] Speaker B: Yeah, during the winter time, he's got his things to do, and he plants. He grows his own corn, and so he grows his own crop. Two bags. So this time of year, when we're not super busy, I can handle most everything by myself or with our Helper. And then he'll go take like this week he was planting corn. Strip killing. [00:11:23] Speaker A: Wow. Yeah, dude. How many acres you got? [00:11:26] Speaker C: Right now I'm at right at 600 total. [00:11:28] Speaker A: Dude, that's cool. And are you applying any products? [00:11:33] Speaker C: Everything except for I do a pass with atrazine and Roundup and it's just such a. We did it with the drone and it worked good. It's just such a hot mix. It's so much chemical in there. I mean, it's a gallon of chemical by itself. [00:11:44] Speaker A: Okay. [00:11:45] Speaker C: So I did that with the tractor, but everything else I do with the drones. [00:11:48] Speaker A: Oh yeah. Do you do any like granule applications with the drone? [00:11:52] Speaker C: We do a lot of COVID crop seeding and we've done a few fertilizer jobs, but it's just not. [00:11:58] Speaker A: Yeah, it's so heavy. It's like you have to loading too. [00:12:01] Speaker D: Many pounds per year. [00:12:03] Speaker B: We did this week, I did 250 acres of liquid fertilizer at a gallon acre. [00:12:08] Speaker A: Yeah. So we were, we actually do. Were doing that. [00:12:12] Speaker B: It worked well. It worked really well. [00:12:14] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:12:14] Speaker B: And he put some fungicide in there as well, so. [00:12:17] Speaker A: So with that many acres under your belt, have you figured out the exact parameters to fly? You know, this product on. [00:12:27] Speaker B: That's a. That's an hour by hour decision. There's a lot of factors out there. [00:12:32] Speaker A: Yeah. Tell us more. Like maybe somebody has listened. You know, you can. [00:12:36] Speaker B: Sure. So you would have to pick a product. Right. So let's just say we're doing Roundup and we're doing burn down and it was windy. You know, we would slow down, we would go to like 500 micron, 28 foot width, about 26, 27ft per second. [00:12:51] Speaker A: Okay. [00:12:52] Speaker B: No wind, perfectly fine. We're going to let it rip. 32.8 and you know, a 30 foot swath. And we're going to cut it back to like a 320micron. So we get really good droplets everywhere. Right. And down here there's not a lot of leaves on the trees right now. So the wind really blows through those tree lines. And during the summertime there's a lot of foliage around the edges, a lot of wind breaks. And that really makes a difference, especially when you're talking about these smaller fields because the wind is blocking it. It's a big sail all the way around it. So we like to look at what the drone's doing and make small adjustments until we get the pattern looking just like we want it. [00:13:32] Speaker A: Okay. [00:13:33] Speaker B: So sometimes we might be flying 28ft per second, sometimes we might be flying 24, and then in forestry we really slow down, we start doing forestry, we do like 15ft per second. [00:13:42] Speaker A: Okay. [00:13:43] Speaker D: To try to blow it down in more. [00:13:44] Speaker B: Try to blow it down in more. Because they go in and cut all the trees where they leave things that are non desirable. You think about a $300,000 cutter with carbide teeth on it. He don't want to cut down sweet gum trees. You know, he don't want to ruin his cutter head over cutting down a small sweet gum trees. They'll take all the desirable woods out of there and they'll leave these little small trees where you have to go just high enough to get over them. Well, you don't want to have a bunch of drift, so you really want to slow down and blow it down in there. [00:14:11] Speaker A: Okay, that's valuable. So it really changes. So when you're ripping 32.8ft per second, you're saying your swath you think is 32ft, or are you thinking it's 30ft? [00:14:22] Speaker B: I would like to say 32, but I would rather get better coverage and make sure we didn't miss anything. [00:14:28] Speaker A: Okay, so I'm going to show you a picture. And I know for a fact I was there. [00:14:32] Speaker B: I would like to do 30. That would be. [00:14:34] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. Okay. So this, this is my theory on it. And I don't know if I'm right for sure or not, but when I look at it, it is definitely 34 in my eyes. And if I go 32 route spacing, that means I'm going to have a foot overlap on each side. Would you say is that good or bad? [00:14:53] Speaker B: I would say it's pretty good. And it depends on the product that you're putting out there. Right. [00:14:56] Speaker A: Fungicide. [00:14:57] Speaker B: So fungicide. Okay. We're talking about spores that are moving with the air, and sometimes they attach their self to a plant. So if we have that fungicide in the vicinity of where it's going to be, I'm not saying like 20ft off target, but you know, within a foot or so, it's going to be very effective in my opinion. [00:15:13] Speaker A: Okay, so. So look at this picture here. Farmer John sends me this picture. Can you tell me what's going on with it? [00:15:20] Speaker B: It looks like it's striped. [00:15:21] Speaker A: Yeah. So it's perfectly streaked. But I was there, I filmed that. I. I have the drones laying it down. No wind. But why do we have light streets and dark streets? My theory is, is the light streets it over. [00:15:36] Speaker B: Over applicated a little. [00:15:37] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:15:39] Speaker C: Well, and you're gonna. It's just gonna be the same as a fertilizer, like spreading fertilizer with a buggy. It's gonna be the same thing as any aerial application. You can, you can go behind the buggy that says, oh, we're gonna spread 12 rows wine, but it's 16 rows. There's fertilizer, and it's not gonna be uniform all the way across, and it's. [00:15:56] Speaker B: Gonna be heavier and lighter. [00:15:57] Speaker C: And so you're gonna probably have. No matter what you set your width at, unless it's, I mean, you know, within reason, you're gonna have some. You want there to be overlap there. [00:16:07] Speaker A: Yeah. So former sends me this picture is upset because he feels like the drone streaked, but I'm trying to say, like, it looks like it's streaked, but I know I got coverage on that. [00:16:17] Speaker B: And you could prove it with as applied maps. Right. You can go to every flight and see. [00:16:20] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:16:21] Speaker C: So when you don't know at that point, you don't really know what caused that. [00:16:26] Speaker A: Right. Because the corn is now dead. And he's looking at, well, this corn is not completely dead or as much dead as the one next to it. [00:16:33] Speaker B: So last year was a really bad disease year too. Is that in Indiana or Illinois? [00:16:37] Speaker A: This was Ohio. [00:16:38] Speaker B: Ohio. So Indiana, we saw a lot of black tar spot later in the year, and I mean, just devastated. And down here, too, we had a really dry summer. And anytime you have a really dry summer, it seems to. It's hot, it's humid, we got moist air coming off the Gulf. It's just breeding fungus. Right. And also, it may not be an application problem. It could have been a chemical problem, could have been a water problem. It could have been. There's a lot. [00:17:05] Speaker A: But you know what's weird is we. We went and sprayed fields for that same farmer right across the hill. Nothing. No difference. So it's just. [00:17:14] Speaker D: There's chemicals, same everything. [00:17:16] Speaker A: There's the same load and everything. [00:17:18] Speaker D: Same water. [00:17:18] Speaker A: I don't understand. [00:17:19] Speaker B: And the other side of the hill was good. It's like, yep. That is crazy. [00:17:25] Speaker A: It's like there's so many variables when doing an application. It's like, just because this field looks like that doesn't mean that it didn't cover properly. Like you're saying it could have been a chemical, could have been a water. But then I'd say, well, that doesn't make sense because we just did a field down the road. But then I would say, well, it was maybe 200ft elevation where this field Was. Or it held a lot more fog. [00:17:48] Speaker B: Yes. [00:17:48] Speaker A: Right. And so the disease was heavier up there than it was down there or whatever. Right. Vice versa. But it's interesting when you get that, because I'm a drone applicator and I want to do the best drone application. I want to do the best application, period. [00:18:01] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:18:02] Speaker A: Whatever I'm doing, I want to do it the best. And then when I get that, I'm like, I know I hit that. [00:18:06] Speaker B: So. [00:18:07] Speaker A: So how can I do it better? [00:18:08] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, if you're going to be successful in life, it don't matter if you're breaking rocks into little rocks. You want to make the best little. [00:18:14] Speaker A: Rocks you can make. [00:18:15] Speaker B: And because your customers going to be like, hey, man, that man makes the best little rocks. You know? But, I mean, I don't know it. I think you're right. If you think if you took this river that we're on and you put markers from here as far as we could see down there, and you looked at the wind like a little piece of ribbon or something like that, I think you'd be really surprised if you put a camera on every one of them and overlaid them, like put them in different corners of the TV or something and looked at how things moved around out there. I mean, you can kind of do it with the water, but there's a lot of ships and stuff, a boom out there stopping things. But it's going to move that fungus around. I think it's going to move disease around. Temperature, fog, humidity, everything's going to move around. There's so many variables. [00:18:56] Speaker A: Yeah. So. But there's. There was. There would have been no way to check that day other than putting, you know, some tape out or some paper out to see if the application was applied properly. But it doesn't even come down to was it applied properly? Was the chemical. Was the every everything like you're saying. [00:19:15] Speaker B: Just been more disease there? How many years had corn been in that field? [00:19:18] Speaker A: Good question. I should ask that. See, I want to learn. Are those questions I should ask when I go out. [00:19:23] Speaker B: That was that other field in beans last year. Was this corn on corn on corn? Was this year three of corn? Was that residue. Was there mildew in the residue left over from last summer that didn't get turned in this spring that just rose up? [00:19:38] Speaker A: Dude, I like that because you guys are farmers. I. I wouldn't know. [00:19:41] Speaker C: Is it different variety? There's. It could have been a nutrient problem from the beginning. It could have been. [00:19:47] Speaker A: So, so, so when somebody puts Something on Facebook. Right. There's these folks face toward groups. I don't even get involved because there's so many things that unless you're having a conversation like this where you and I are just trying to talk it through, you get, well, you didn't do this, or you should have done that, or it's like there's so many variables that. Trying to put it out there. Just a picture. Hey, can you tell me what's wrong here? Yeah, it's not gonna work. Yeah, that's good. But you guys are farmers and applicators, so I think that the people that are listening, you guys have a wealth of knowledge that you can share with them that could potentially help them be a better applicator or make a smart decision. Do I want to have a drone, you know, do my application stuff? Do you guys travel? [00:20:26] Speaker B: Yes. So Illinois. We have a big client in Indiana that's got a lot of acres in Illinois for us this year. We went to Texas about a month ago. I try to stay out of Mississippi. Mississippi. At all possible. [00:20:39] Speaker A: Okay. [00:20:40] Speaker D: Why? [00:20:41] Speaker B: Man? It's always some kind of dramatic thing where you go over there and somebody didn't like it, and the neighbor saw you in there, and they call the extension office, and they're like, this guy killed my blueberry bushes six miles away. You know, and there was no way it happened. And you go out there and there's no damage to anything, and it just. It's just been bad experience everything. [00:21:05] Speaker A: So it's just the people. [00:21:07] Speaker B: Yeah. I think they're hanging on to the airplane as long as possible, and they don't. It's not necessarily the person that wants you to come, you know, it's the people around you. [00:21:17] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:21:18] Speaker B: People around that are. That are something. [00:21:20] Speaker A: That's crazy. [00:21:21] Speaker C: We've had problems with airplanes here. [00:21:23] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:21:24] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. [00:21:24] Speaker C: With. They moved to a field, and they'd move close enough so that we can't fly, and then we'd move to another field, and they'd. They'd change their route. Taxiing. And we. No, we spent a whole day. [00:21:37] Speaker B: A whole day. One day with an airplane. And he would make sure that his turnarounds were over our field. Whenever he had three quarters of a mile on either side of us that he could have turned around. And he knew that we were supposed to yield to him, and he knew that all he had to do was open up his phone and take some videos of us not yielding to him. [00:21:55] Speaker C: That's bullshit. [00:21:56] Speaker B: And then every time he would leave to go ferry to go fill we would knock out 20 acres or 30 acres, and then he'd come back and he'd turn around all day long. [00:22:04] Speaker A: Wow. That's just wrong. [00:22:05] Speaker D: That is ignorant. [00:22:06] Speaker A: It's wrong. [00:22:07] Speaker B: The thing is, I'm trying to get them to charge more, and they're charging less, and they're jealous of something. [00:22:11] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. So. So your. Your. Your service, you're charging more than an airplane, and you're still doing work. Why is that? [00:22:18] Speaker B: You think we can get in the corners, we can go underneath the power lines. We turn around inside the field, we're doing a better job. [00:22:26] Speaker A: Have you ever been able to do a field side by side? This one was done with drones, and this one was done with airplanes. And see a difference? [00:22:33] Speaker B: I have done it with a ground rig and a drone, but not airplane versus drone. [00:22:38] Speaker A: Okay. [00:22:39] Speaker B: So my dad had 90 acres of peanuts, and then we had 130 acres down the road. Just a little piece down the road two years ago. And one year, we did all our fungicide with a drone, and we did all our fungicide on the 90 acres with a drone and all our fungicide on the 130 acres with a ground rig. [00:22:57] Speaker D: Different gallons per acre or same gallons per acre? [00:22:59] Speaker B: Different gallons per acre. They was. The drone was doing two gallons, the ground sprayer was doing five. [00:23:04] Speaker A: There's no way that you got the same type of results. [00:23:08] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, we got. We combine more peanuts off 85 acres. Total tonnage. More than double the tons of peanuts off 85 acres. And we did off a whole 130 acres. 50 acres. More. 45. [00:23:20] Speaker A: Tell me how you think that is. [00:23:22] Speaker B: Because the drone was putting the fungicide underneath the leaf, and peanuts lay flat on the ground. They grow underneath the vine, grows on top of the ground. White mold gets in the moist area between the plant on top of the ground, and white mold takes. It makes the roots really soft, and it hurts the yield when you dig them. You'll have a lot of digger loss from white mold. And we were turning those leaves over. The drone was turning those leaves over. [00:23:48] Speaker A: At what speed were you applying this? [00:23:49] Speaker B: We was slow. [00:23:50] Speaker A: Okay. I was gonna say. You were. You were really pounding it down. [00:23:53] Speaker B: 24. [00:23:54] Speaker A: Did you have four nozzles set up to do that? [00:23:56] Speaker B: That was my first T40. I didn't even know how to go faster than 24ft per second. [00:24:00] Speaker A: Okay. [00:24:01] Speaker B: So I was like. It was a brand new thing. [00:24:03] Speaker A: Wow, that is. That's crazy aggressive because. Okay, same scenario. I just show you that cornfield. We're working for a co op doing that we're doing two gallon wort. They have a ground rig, lots of ground rigs. They cover 70, 80,000 acres or something like that in our area. So they like ground rigs because they've been able to do it. Now they'll use us if it's wet or. Or some farmers don't want them in their field because they're smashing their crop. And he does 15 gallons per acre with fungicide, the same stuff we were putting down. And he's here, he is saying that his ground rig is getting a higher yield. I was like, okay, I get that. But we can't compare it apples to apples. You're putting a lot more product, maybe not chemical, but actual total product, total solution. You're putting more on. You should get better coverage if you're putting that much on. And he's, you know, coming back and saying the drone yielded 8 acres, 8 bushels more per acre and the ground rig did 15 bushels. I'm like, well, I don't like that test. Can we do an exact test? I have no problem slowing it down. And so to hear you give that, you know, it's five gallons versus two gallons is a lot closer than it is. Two gallons versus 15. [00:25:15] Speaker B: Right. And I think that's probably going to be a haggie, right? [00:25:18] Speaker A: Yeah. I think they have a John Deere and they jack it up. [00:25:21] Speaker B: Oh, okay. Yeah. So we have John Deere and I don't think you can get 15 gallons out unless you slow way down. [00:25:27] Speaker A: Oh, okay, okay. [00:25:28] Speaker B: They probably had to slow way down. [00:25:30] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, they couldn't even go fast. Our fields are. [00:25:32] Speaker B: Or it might be a newer one maybe. [00:25:33] Speaker A: Yeah, they're super small and on a. [00:25:35] Speaker C: Hill and yeah, on some stuff, more gallons per acre isn't always better. I mean, we get a better kill on burn down and with herbicide at 2 gallons acre than you'll get with 10. Because those droplets are hot. Way hotter than. [00:25:48] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:25:48] Speaker C: What? And you're watering it down a lot more. [00:25:51] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:25:51] Speaker B: Now one thing I believe in won't hardly do any work without is drift control. [00:25:56] Speaker A: Yeah. Like a good dra. What do you like? Not that you're advertising for them, but. [00:26:02] Speaker B: You'Re just telling rain. [00:26:04] Speaker C: Rain. [00:26:04] Speaker B: Yeah. R, E, I G N. I think how you spell it, it's really similar to a clasp, but Clasp. We've had problems with it turning into like a blob of jell O in the jug. If it gets in the sunlight, it gets hot. And we've not had any issues with rain. It seems to Flow good. You can physically or, you know, you can see the difference in real time. You can be flying with no rain in there. Go pour a quart in your mix and let it agitate while you're flying that load and fill it up the next load, and you can see the difference. [00:26:35] Speaker A: No way. [00:26:36] Speaker D: Wow. [00:26:36] Speaker A: Wow. But did you guys have any problems with your droplet size not being what you have maybe chose? So see, if you're choosing 300, it's either bigger or smaller. [00:26:49] Speaker B: I really don't have a way to. [00:26:50] Speaker D: You haven't tested it? [00:26:51] Speaker B: I don't have a way. You know, but you would say. [00:26:54] Speaker A: Say visually looking at it. It's doing what it's saying it is. [00:26:58] Speaker B: Yeah. I think not every droplet with a rotary atomizer is going to be the same size. So if you put. Set it at 320 or 400, I say that you're going to have a range there where you're going to see like some 280s, and you're going to see some 375s, or you'll see some 350s to 425s. But I think the technology there is advancing. Have you seen all the atomizers here? There's like four different types of. [00:27:21] Speaker A: Yep. [00:27:21] Speaker B: And last year there was one. Everybody had the same thing. [00:27:24] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:27:25] Speaker C: There's probably between our. If you pick two of our. Any. Any two of our 250s with different acres on it, they're probably going to be different. [00:27:32] Speaker B: I think so, too. [00:27:33] Speaker A: Okay. [00:27:34] Speaker B: Just with slightly. [00:27:35] Speaker A: And why is that? [00:27:36] Speaker C: I mean, I'm sure it's. It's a part that's plastic. It's. It's got to wear, I mean, or. [00:27:41] Speaker B: Warp or not come out of the mold exactly the same or something, you. [00:27:45] Speaker A: Know, because I'm going to explain it to the listener. The atomizer is kind of like a cup that is spinning, and then it's sending out the fluid that is sitting in the cup. Sliding through gaps, we could call it. Yeah. And so you're saying that those little cutters that are plastic could wear down? [00:28:04] Speaker C: I mean, I'm. I'm sure it would. I mean. [00:28:06] Speaker A: Yeah. It only makes sense, right? [00:28:08] Speaker B: Any water cut? The Grand Canyon. [00:28:10] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:28:11] Speaker D: Yep. [00:28:12] Speaker A: Pallet point. Ballot point. [00:28:13] Speaker B: You think it can't cut a piece of plastic? I mean, it's got to wear, I think, or. [00:28:18] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:28:18] Speaker C: Well, especially. We're not. It's not like we're just putting water through the drone all the time. It's a lot in that. A lot of them. There's stuff that'll separate out in there. I mean it's got to be something that would cause some sort of abrasion. [00:28:30] Speaker A: What about. I've had a guy on the podcast talking about spillover. So say we're doing two to two gallon work. The atomizer, let's call it disc or cup, can hold that 2 gallons an acre. But when you go to 5 gallons an acre, can it hold all that without spilling out? [00:28:46] Speaker B: So flooding. [00:28:47] Speaker C: Right. [00:28:48] Speaker B: Okay. [00:28:50] Speaker A: Have you ever thought of that or not really. [00:28:52] Speaker B: So that two gallons an acre or five gallons an acre is coming through a piece of three, eight tubing. [00:28:57] Speaker A: Yep. [00:28:58] Speaker B: And that atomizer is probably three and a half inches across. [00:29:00] Speaker A: Yep. [00:29:01] Speaker B: So do you think you can flood 3 1/2 inches with 2 with a 38 inch? [00:29:05] Speaker A: I'm not sure. I mean, I mean at a certain. [00:29:08] Speaker C: Point I'm sure you could, but I don't. None of our, none of. [00:29:11] Speaker B: I can't see the. Yeah, yeah, you can test it on the ground too. I mean you could take a slow motion camera. [00:29:17] Speaker A: Me and Landon did that. We, what was that camera we had in that we did slow motion shooting of the atomizer. But we were shooting at how many frames? Yeah, and we did that, we did that on the, the T50. And there was no spillover. [00:29:32] Speaker B: Right? [00:29:33] Speaker A: None. [00:29:34] Speaker B: Like so I don't see how, I mean, I don't think the pumps don't make enough pressure. This has to be low pressure to be completely compliant with. You know, you can't run high pressure on spraying. Okay, so. [00:29:44] Speaker A: So the T60X has a high pressure spray atomizer. Do you would you know how that works? [00:29:53] Speaker B: I'm not sure it, look, it is a different atomizer out there, but I'm sure there's an acceptable limit. But anytime you, you know, you go take your applicator state applicator test, they're going to ask you about pressures and always low pressure is the way to go. Like as far as drift control for. [00:30:08] Speaker A: A rotary atomizer or is that for any type of spray? [00:30:11] Speaker B: I think everything. [00:30:12] Speaker A: Okay. Cuz I, I, I've never run a, a sprayer that. What is it when you have to change your tips? [00:30:17] Speaker B: Oh yeah, just a tip change. [00:30:19] Speaker C: Yeah, those are low pressure. [00:30:21] Speaker A: Would that be low pressure? [00:30:22] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:30:22] Speaker B: You're talking 8 psi to 40 psi. [00:30:25] Speaker C: Yeah. Anywhere from. And probably, probably more like from 15 to 40. Probably. [00:30:29] Speaker A: Okay. [00:30:30] Speaker B: So the old spray coupes, we had a gauge on the, on the hood and yeah, he would see it go up. You're like, oh, I'm getting it now. You know, we didn't know what we were doing. [00:30:42] Speaker A: So you said you're on number four trailer, drone trailer? [00:30:45] Speaker B: I think so. [00:30:46] Speaker A: Right. Are you guys flying off of top of a trailer? [00:30:49] Speaker B: Yes. So last year we had an apex trailer for a little bit. I got set up with them as a dealer for them, and I got a trailer. They sent us a whole bunch of acres, and they want us to run their trailer. So we run it for the summer. [00:31:00] Speaker A: What do you mean they sent you acres? [00:31:03] Speaker B: They hired us to come up there. [00:31:04] Speaker A: Oh, okay. Okay. [00:31:04] Speaker B: And help. [00:31:05] Speaker A: Okay. [00:31:06] Speaker B: They didn't have enough people to cover the acres. [00:31:09] Speaker A: Oh, okay. [00:31:09] Speaker B: They needed some help covering their acres. All right, Pick them up. [00:31:12] Speaker A: How'd you like that trailer? [00:31:14] Speaker B: We. I liked the doghouse. I like the work area with the stairs and stuff. [00:31:20] Speaker D: Was it a trailer where you're flying the drones and landing up top, or was it. You could. [00:31:24] Speaker B: Okay. Yeah, you could now. We landed up top a few times. We didn't land up top all the time. And then we built a trailer that we could land on top of the. And then one of our customers wanted it, he bought it. So now we have another trailer that we're building right now. And it's going to get a top new way trailer. [00:31:39] Speaker A: I got to get you one. Because I. For a guy like yourself that puts that many acres on. I'd like to see what you think running off of it, because I like to brag on our floor. There's no other trailer that has a floor like ours. It's solid. It's like, not ginsey. [00:31:53] Speaker B: And so on the trailer that we have now, I was going to use this stuff they use on boat docks. [00:31:58] Speaker A: Okay. [00:31:58] Speaker B: And it's like an inch thick. It's plastic, and it's got elongated holes in it. And you can screw it down. It's has. It's like pre set up for where you put your screws and everything. They interlock together so you could build a flush floor. Okay. This kind of high end, that's what I was going to put up there. [00:32:16] Speaker A: Okay. But interesting. [00:32:18] Speaker B: And we like a gooseneck. We like a gooseneck. [00:32:20] Speaker A: We have a gooseneck option available now. [00:32:22] Speaker B: We tried the bumper pool. And for us going over these water breaks and terraces and things like that, we were having problems bottoming out when we would go over the water breaks and then getting into these forestry things. Whenever you would go up a steep hill, it seemed like it put a lot more pressure on the back tires and we had problems getting stuck. [00:32:42] Speaker A: Okay. [00:32:43] Speaker B: But with a gooseneck, it evens that pressure out Pushing some pressure on the front tires and I mean, how many. [00:32:50] Speaker A: Forestry acres are you spraying? [00:32:54] Speaker B: I'm gonna guess 2000. [00:32:57] Speaker D: Is it mostly like, cut over stuff or they take pines out? [00:33:01] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. We haven't done any release spray yet. [00:33:04] Speaker A: But what's release spray? [00:33:06] Speaker B: So if you had a stand of loblolly pines or slash pines, you would use a chemical called Imazapyr. It's a soil active herbicide. And if they had some sweet gums that had sprouted up into the stand of pines, you would spray over the top of that and it would selectively kill those hardwoods through the soil. [00:33:27] Speaker A: Wow. Wow. So it would not affect the pine. [00:33:30] Speaker B: Trees at the right rate? It will not. [00:33:33] Speaker A: Okay, that's pretty darn impressive, but it makes it too hot. [00:33:38] Speaker B: The difference in 24 ounces and 18 ounces is a couple thousand dollars an acre in your pocket. [00:33:43] Speaker A: Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh. That. That would be a high risk job for me. I'm nervous just spraying any type of herbicide just because of drift. Right. Like you said, there's people that, oh, you killed my stuff, and I'm five miles down the road. I was like, oh, geez. Yeah. [00:33:58] Speaker C: No, I mean, I would say down here we spray as much herbicide as. As anything. [00:34:03] Speaker A: No way. And you're saying it does just as good as a ground rate? [00:34:07] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. [00:34:07] Speaker C: I. [00:34:07] Speaker D: With two gallons an acre, I'd argue. [00:34:09] Speaker C: That it does better, but. Because I think you get that much better of a kill. [00:34:13] Speaker B: You just gotta be careful along your ends. We do y' all do the boundary route? [00:34:17] Speaker A: Auto route boundary. [00:34:18] Speaker B: You do? [00:34:19] Speaker A: I mean, sometimes. Sometimes we don't. [00:34:21] Speaker B: Okay. We like to run. We don't like to run the boundary route because there's so many limbs and stuff that grow out. And the air. The satellite imagery sometimes is a little old. So it seems like if you don't run the boundary route and you touch up manual plus on the edges and stuff with herbicide, it seems to you have less problems with the drones turning around and avoiding obstacles and things. [00:34:43] Speaker D: So we fly around the edge of the field with the drone building the boundary that way. [00:34:47] Speaker B: I've done that too. [00:34:48] Speaker C: And with dropping the points. [00:34:49] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, it works. It works. [00:34:52] Speaker D: So you guys would do it with just Google Maps. Build your fuel that way. [00:34:56] Speaker C: Okay. [00:34:56] Speaker A: So we've had farmers request fungicide. They want applied with an auto route boundary to kind of paint in those edges. They felt like they could see the disease pressure on the edges where the drone maybe came to a stop. And then a little Section was missed when it turned. [00:35:13] Speaker B: No, it makes sense. Yeah, it's just, I think it takes a little bit more time. Takes a few more minutes. [00:35:17] Speaker D: It does. Yeah, it does take a little bit more time. [00:35:19] Speaker B: And we want to do a good job. But if we can on herbicides. If you can touch up those edges in manual plus. [00:35:26] Speaker D: So you would just fly around the whole edge using manual plus some spraying. [00:35:29] Speaker B: Yeah. Especially on burn down. Because if you over applicate a little bit, you're not gonna hurt. There's not a standing crop. Yeah. [00:35:36] Speaker A: Right. [00:35:37] Speaker B: So you know, we just want to make sure that we touch up the edges. [00:35:40] Speaker A: So do your prices vary based on what you're spraying? Because sometimes you have to fly slower or faster. [00:35:47] Speaker B: Wildly. [00:35:47] Speaker A: Okay. [00:35:48] Speaker B: A big variation in price and depending on the crop and the clean out procedures and things like that. [00:35:54] Speaker A: That's valuable stuff. It's like, because people, you know, getting into it. What do I charge? Well, you're gonna have to feel out the market. I don't know what your market is. This and that. That's something that only experience will really help a guy get figured out. [00:36:09] Speaker B: So some of our clean out chemicals are a hundred dollars a gallon. They don't take a whole gallon. But you know, you want to definitely put a cord in there to clean your mix tank out and circulate it through all the lines. And then you got to clean that out. [00:36:21] Speaker A: Yep. [00:36:21] Speaker B: You know, because it'll, it'll deactivate chemical. [00:36:24] Speaker A: Oh. [00:36:25] Speaker B: So you want to make sure you deactivate what's in there and then you want to clean slate to going forward where corn and beans. You just go from corn to beans, corn to beans and corn to beans. Well, if you go from pine trees to peanuts to cotton. [00:36:36] Speaker A: Oh yeah. [00:36:37] Speaker B: Back to corn. Yeah. It needs to be, it's got to be spotless. There can't be nothing stuck in a bag. [00:36:42] Speaker A: Is there an all around cowboy cleaner that you like? [00:36:46] Speaker B: No. [00:36:46] Speaker A: No. Okay. [00:36:47] Speaker B: We use ammonia, Clorox. All clear. And then sometimes just dawn. I mean it depends on what and. [00:36:54] Speaker A: Who taught you what you need to use on what herbicides or whatever you're spraying. [00:36:59] Speaker B: Yeah, our chemical rep and experience. [00:37:01] Speaker C: A lot of it comes from the label. I mean the label. [00:37:04] Speaker A: Okay. [00:37:04] Speaker C: The label is the probably the most underutilized thing tool that I hear about. Anybody. They won't read the label and they're not always the easiest to read. But it'll tell you everything that you need to know about each of the. [00:37:17] Speaker B: Chemicals and, and the situation and the droplet size and how much Water you got to use and you know it's it. [00:37:23] Speaker A: Yeah. Label is the law, but a lot of people, they might not look at. [00:37:27] Speaker B: It from front to back. [00:37:28] Speaker A: Mm. [00:37:29] Speaker B: I suggest you know it. [00:37:30] Speaker A: Yep. That's good. So reading the label is going to tell you what type of cleaner you're gonna need. [00:37:35] Speaker B: Okay. It usually does that. Usually it's towards the back of the label. [00:37:39] Speaker A: And is that on every chemical? Just herbicide. [00:37:43] Speaker B: Right. Is it in everyone? [00:37:44] Speaker C: I'm not sure if it's required in a label, but if, if it's required, it'll be in every single chemical label. [00:37:49] Speaker B: If it's required by the chemical, it will be in the label is what he's saying. [00:37:53] Speaker A: Oh, okay. [00:37:53] Speaker B: But he, he had a class on chemical labels in Auburn University. [00:37:57] Speaker A: That's cool. [00:37:58] Speaker B: It's handy. [00:37:59] Speaker A: No, and it's valuable. It's. Again, that's what this podcast is for, is it's just valuable information because sometimes. Okay, so I'll. I'll. I'll tell you how I think about it. When I'm flying thermal drones and I'm finding deer, people are asking what I think are like, why would you ask that question? It's common sense. But like when we're talking about this, you're saying it's on the label. [00:38:20] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:38:20] Speaker A: People don't know that. [00:38:21] Speaker D: But it's not common sense if you don't know it. [00:38:23] Speaker A: Yeah. Right. But sometimes just talking about it is actually really good. [00:38:28] Speaker B: Yeah. All you gotta do is spark that fire, right? [00:38:30] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:38:30] Speaker B: Get somebody to think about it and then maybe it'll be useful to them. Hopefully it will. [00:38:34] Speaker C: I mean, for what it's worth, the. Even though you don't sign it or anything, that label is a legally binding document. If you don't follow it, you're just. [00:38:43] Speaker B: Like, you run in a stop sign, you're. [00:38:45] Speaker C: And you're liable for it whether you looked at it or not. So yeah. [00:38:49] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:38:49] Speaker D: If you're not following the label, you're doing illegal. [00:38:52] Speaker B: Drive drunk through a school zone and run over a kid and you're going to prison. You know, same thing. [00:38:58] Speaker D: So give us an idea of like bottom end pricing per acre to top. [00:39:03] Speaker B: End pricing per acre, bottom. I don't like to be any cheaper than $10. That's tough. [00:39:08] Speaker A: $10 per acre flat. [00:39:11] Speaker B: Things gotta go well too, you know, you gotta have a decent day. [00:39:14] Speaker A: No, wait, but you're giving a price prior to starting the job. You can't say, well, if it goes good, then it's gonna be this price. [00:39:21] Speaker B: Yeah, but you have questions. We Ask, Right. You know, do you have a water source? Have you tested your water source? What's your fields look like? How many acres do you have spraying? What's the crop, what's the chemical you know, you want to you, before you ever commit to anything, you want as much information as you can get. [00:39:40] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:39:40] Speaker B: I mean, you wouldn't take off, drive to New York with $20 in your pocket and a Ford Pinto from 1987. I mean, you know you want to go. [00:39:48] Speaker A: Okay, so why would you ask? So I'm going to point go through some of those water tests. Why would you test your water? [00:39:54] Speaker B: Okay, so iron can take the effectiveness out of some herbicides. [00:39:59] Speaker A: Okay. [00:40:00] Speaker C: So if it has iron, pH and alkalinity of the water, all that can. You can have a chemical failure from the water not being right. And. [00:40:08] Speaker A: Okay, and do you test your water every time when you put it in your tank? [00:40:12] Speaker B: If it's not a known well, we have a test kit in the truck. If it is a known established well and it's been there for many years. [00:40:21] Speaker C: A lot of them we pulled water from before. So once we've kind of been there and, and pull water from there, we're not really going to check it again. [00:40:27] Speaker B: But city water systems are the worst. Their water varies more than anything else. [00:40:33] Speaker A: Okay. [00:40:34] Speaker B: This is valuable because they treat that water. [00:40:37] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:40:37] Speaker B: And you got a young kid that's 18 years old that just went to some classes like, oh, yeah, you dump some of this in there? Well, he'll measure nothing because the guy that showed him didn't measure nothing. [00:40:46] Speaker A: Yeah. You know, this is good, guys. Okay, so does water for every chemical, does water have to be a certain something, whatever, whatever it's called, like ph has to be this level. [00:40:58] Speaker B: So I would say insecticides and fungicides are less susceptible, would you think? [00:41:03] Speaker C: I'm not sure if they're less susceptible. If you're just not going to see it like you're, you're not going to say, oh, you know, I mean, you could see the end results and say, oh, well, there's, you know, something tar spot everywhere out here. This fungicide didn't do anything. But with herbicide you're gonna know in a week, oh, well, this didn't do anything. [00:41:22] Speaker B: So with certain herbicides you might know that today. [00:41:24] Speaker A: So on the label, is a label going to tell you that? [00:41:27] Speaker B: No, not usually. [00:41:29] Speaker C: I'm not really sure, but. [00:41:31] Speaker A: So how's somebody going to know what the ph balance stuff should be? [00:41:35] Speaker B: You can go to Walmart, buy a pool test kit Correct. [00:41:38] Speaker A: But I'm saying, like, what. Where should it be for this chemical to react to it properly? [00:41:44] Speaker B: Yeah. So you don't want it. So alkalinity is basically a measurement of the water to return back to itself. So when people drink alkaline water, it's kind of gimmicky. [00:41:55] Speaker A: Okay. [00:41:56] Speaker B: Because it's just resisting chemical change. Alkalinity is. And then your PH is going to be how acidic or alkaline. What's the other side of it? [00:42:05] Speaker C: Base. [00:42:06] Speaker B: Base. Acidic or base. So you want it pretty neutral. Neutral on your ph. Pretty close to what, 6.4 to 7:2. [00:42:17] Speaker A: So if I do a water test and I pull it out, give it a couple minutes, seconds, wave it around, do it, measure it up. I know how these work. I'm just trying to talk it through. So the listener that's listening is trying to learn everything should be neutral or certain things can be high. [00:42:35] Speaker B: It's got a chart on the side. If you've seen the. The thing, it's got a chart and it'll tell you what's high and low. And then. [00:42:43] Speaker A: And you just try to get it balanced. [00:42:45] Speaker B: Try to get it balanced. And there's chemicals that will balance it. Choice trio. [00:42:49] Speaker C: We have water treatment on the trailer. [00:42:51] Speaker A: Okay. [00:42:52] Speaker B: Yeah. We learned something. Well, you don't want to mix that choice with 2,4D. [00:42:56] Speaker C: It'll turn into a block. [00:42:58] Speaker A: Oh, no. [00:42:58] Speaker B: Go get some better water. [00:43:01] Speaker A: No way. [00:43:02] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:43:03] Speaker C: At least that was on. That was for me personally. So that's. [00:43:06] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:43:06] Speaker A: Okay. And that, that was just. It wouldn't have told you that this is going to happen. [00:43:10] Speaker B: That's where your jar test comes in. Right? [00:43:13] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:43:13] Speaker B: So if you have a mix up that you've never done before, follow your wells mixing order and then do a test sample. We like to do a half acre or an acre test sample. Mix it up, let it sit, stir it up, give it some time, make sure everything's going to mix up. Right. [00:43:28] Speaker C: We had another chemical that turned into like jello almost. [00:43:33] Speaker D: We had that. [00:43:34] Speaker A: We had that once, but the guy wanted molasses in his fungicide and it was. [00:43:37] Speaker B: Hated it. [00:43:38] Speaker D: Like, remember we had it in Indiana too. Okay. [00:43:42] Speaker A: That's the only one I read. Okay. Yeah. [00:43:44] Speaker B: Yeah. I don't remember what happened though. I do. Oh, it was triclopir 3 in Makazi, a generic brand glyphosate. [00:43:54] Speaker C: And it was, it was turning. It was almost like so crystallizing in the jug. [00:43:58] Speaker B: So that wasn't a water problem because we were like, we have to figure out what's going on. And like, we use this mix up all the time. You know, it's something with you. I'm like, no, it ain't. No. And so I was like, let's go get some. And we just put glyphosate, the Mikazi and the Triclopyr 3 in a jug. And it turned into like. [00:44:17] Speaker C: We just did like an acre mix. [00:44:20] Speaker B: We tried. We tried it both ways, right? We've tried it with water first and then we tried it just the two chemicals together. And it turned like instantly, not instant, 15, 20 minutes. It turned into a brick. [00:44:32] Speaker A: Wow. [00:44:33] Speaker B: Yeah, they just didn't react right. [00:44:34] Speaker A: So these types of experiences that you guys have had with chemical, it shouldn't necessarily scare people away. It's just knowledge that a guy should have on asking the customer questions about, you know, do you have water? There is a good water. Should I do a test and all that stuff. [00:44:51] Speaker B: Atrazine. Y' all do a lot of atrazine. Don't use any leftover atrazine. If it ain't a brand new jug, tell them you ain't gonna use it. [00:44:59] Speaker A: Why is that? [00:45:00] Speaker B: It does the same thing. It's. Oh, it sets up over the winter time and it doesn't handle temperature changes real well. It doesn't handle storage real well. As long as it's fresh, it's fine. [00:45:11] Speaker A: Dude, that's. This is good. Wealth of knowledge. And the knowledge that you have is because you guys are farmers. That's good because guys like myself, I've never been a farm. I mean, I grew up on a farm, but we weren't farmers. [00:45:23] Speaker B: Right? [00:45:24] Speaker A: I know drones and I want to always learn more about the drones. But then you guys are telling me, you know, not only drone stuff, but farming stuff and the chemical stuff. Because I've been scared on herbicide. I just don't want that risk. It's like. But fungicide is a little. It's easier to. [00:45:42] Speaker D: It's less risky. [00:45:43] Speaker A: Less risky. [00:45:44] Speaker B: Herbicides definitely need to be. You need to take temperature into account. As far as temperature and humidity combined. A lot of times there's a combined factor. A lot of times it's 150. So if you have 150 combined points of temperature and humidity, they will volatile and they will move on you. Gramoxone is real bad about it. 2, 4D triclopyr is bad about it. 2, 4D is bad about it. And Esther versus I mean, I mean. [00:46:10] Speaker A: How does a guy get all this knowledge? Is that. Can he go to. [00:46:13] Speaker B: I'll be around for 40 years. [00:46:16] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So there's no good way to gain. [00:46:20] Speaker C: This and, and a lot of it like with chemicals. Your chemical guy. If you have a good chemical guy. [00:46:25] Speaker B: You need to find somebody that's conservative enough not to get you in trouble, but not so conservative that you won't ever do anything. [00:46:32] Speaker D: Yep. [00:46:33] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:46:33] Speaker C: On like there's okay. Glyphosate. Roundup Power Max doesn't mix with everything just the same as Mikazi or Cornerstone. Any then because there's different surfactants and some of them won't mix with other stuff and it having a good chemical guy. [00:46:51] Speaker B: So you could take Mikazi and it wouldn't mix with Triclopyr 3. You could take Mikazi and mix it with Remedy or you could mix it. [00:46:59] Speaker C: With Triclopyr 4 or round up Power Max with Triclopyr 3 and it's fine. But it's. And it's usually a good chemical guy. I'll catch that and he'll tell you that. [00:47:09] Speaker A: So guys that are new that are listening to this, they're, you know, you're spitting out these names that have never like they've never heard of this. It's like when I first got started I was told the word fungicide. I was like, what's fungicide? [00:47:22] Speaker B: It burns. [00:47:23] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:47:25] Speaker B: Don't get it on your face. [00:47:26] Speaker A: Like I just didn't know. But like you guys are spitting out these. It burns when you have your have. [00:47:31] Speaker D: It on your hands and you go take a piss. [00:47:33] Speaker B: Yeah. That's a bad day. You'd rather piss down your leg. [00:47:41] Speaker A: Just don't hold it. [00:47:43] Speaker B: Just don't squishy. Is there any other chemical you think of that we may have ever had a problem with? [00:47:53] Speaker C: Nothing off the top of my head. [00:47:55] Speaker A: So. [00:47:55] Speaker C: So that's something. [00:47:56] Speaker A: Get a good chemical guy. Be an agronomist probably that he should have mixed these chemicals at one point and help guys to understand it. [00:48:05] Speaker C: Oh and that's like you're talking about pricing. Like what we're putting in the tank is what we might dictate some of the pricing. If that's. If it's going to take me two hours to wash out, we're going to charge a little more because. [00:48:16] Speaker A: But see, only experience is going to know that. Because when you know Henry is cleaning out and it's taking him two hours and he's thinking about 10 o' clock. [00:48:25] Speaker B: At night with a power washer inside a tank because it turned into jello down there. Yep. And you're. Yeah. You got to figure out what to do with everything comes out of it legally. [00:48:35] Speaker C: That and then like, knowing, oh, well, I'm gonna go to three 100 acre fields today versus, oh, I got to go to 40 different fields. [00:48:45] Speaker A: Yep. [00:48:46] Speaker C: It's. And you know, how busy are you. [00:48:49] Speaker B: If you're booked up for three weeks out? You need to raise your prices. [00:48:53] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:48:53] Speaker B: If you're booked up for three or four days out, you're probably pretty close on your price. [00:48:57] Speaker A: That's good. So how far have you traveled for an application? The furthest. [00:49:02] Speaker B: You think Texas or Texas was further? Texas was further. We went almost to Mexico. [00:49:06] Speaker C: West Texas, Southwest. [00:49:09] Speaker A: How many miles was that? A thousand? No. [00:49:13] Speaker C: Eight hundred. [00:49:13] Speaker B: Eight hundred. [00:49:14] Speaker A: Okay. [00:49:14] Speaker D: For how many acres was that? [00:49:15] Speaker B: Two thousand. [00:49:16] Speaker A: Okay. Okay. Huh. [00:49:18] Speaker B: Yeah. But it was a good price. It was. [00:49:21] Speaker A: How long did it take you? [00:49:22] Speaker B: Three days. Three days at four gallons an acre. [00:49:25] Speaker A: Okay. Four nozzles or two nozzles. [00:49:28] Speaker C: Two nozzles. [00:49:29] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:49:29] Speaker D: How many drones? [00:49:30] Speaker B: We were running two, and then there was a guy there. He was. He had a. His own drone. We were there to help him. [00:49:40] Speaker A: That's cool. So three drones technically got 2,000 acres knocked out in two days. [00:49:45] Speaker B: Three. [00:49:45] Speaker A: Three days. [00:49:46] Speaker B: And he started a day ahead of us. [00:49:47] Speaker A: Okay. [00:49:48] Speaker B: But I think he had some startup problems, some issues with. [00:49:52] Speaker A: Oh, there's never a problem with Ray drones. [00:49:54] Speaker C: Right? [00:49:54] Speaker B: No, I think it was his trailer. [00:49:57] Speaker A: Oh, no, I was joking. It's like, it doesn't always go smoothly. [00:50:02] Speaker B: Nothing ever does. I mean, it don't matter if you're going to plant corn, you're going to pick cotton, you're going to combine peanuts. [00:50:08] Speaker A: Or corn or bag corn for the deer hunters. [00:50:11] Speaker C: I mean, shoot, there'll be a day. My. My first day spraying by myself, I sprayed 250 acres in the afternoon. And then I'll have days now where I. I'll get like. I sprayed by myself the other day, and I got 100 acres done, and it took me all day. Just from moving around. [00:50:28] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:50:28] Speaker C: Little. I mean, a six acre field. Eight acre field. [00:50:32] Speaker B: Yeah. That's another thing. I mean, we're not pitching a gig, which, you know, scheme. I don't think if anybody thinks they're gonna hop into this and like, just make a killing. Make a killing without work. Without work. [00:50:44] Speaker A: This is hard work. [00:50:45] Speaker B: This is hard. [00:50:46] Speaker A: So I'm doing an ad right now. Right. And it looks good. $132,000 in 20, 24 days, did 11,000 acres. But they don't know how hard I worked. [00:50:56] Speaker B: You were up at 2:00am Getting stuff ready, and you went to bed at 11. [00:51:00] Speaker A: Yep. Yep. Dude, that's almost right. [00:51:02] Speaker C: And there was a week last year, I worked over 100 hours in a week. [00:51:06] Speaker A: Yeah, I believe it. I believe it. [00:51:07] Speaker B: Yeah. That's no big deal. [00:51:08] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. You got to be willing to work for it, like. [00:51:12] Speaker B: And by the way, before you go spray, go check them steers, make sure that they're not out. Put out a roll of hay. [00:51:18] Speaker A: The thermal drone. If you're gonna do that, just quickly fly it over there and check out the steers. [00:51:22] Speaker B: Yeah, check them out, look at them, make sure they ain't one about to die. And then let's go work. Go work our other job. [00:51:27] Speaker A: Yep. [00:51:28] Speaker B: You know, or go plant corn all week long. And then, hey, Sunday morning before you go to church, you know, go knock out 12 acres for me because it's a favor for somebody, you know. [00:51:36] Speaker A: Would you say that the market is flooded? Too many drone applicators? Not. Not flooded. [00:51:42] Speaker B: Not here. [00:51:43] Speaker A: Not here, no. [00:51:44] Speaker D: But what percentage of your work is done in Alabama? [00:51:47] Speaker B: 80. 85. [00:51:48] Speaker A: Okay. [00:51:49] Speaker B: Yeah, I would say. I don't know, maybe that. That and in Illinois is a big deal. I don't want to undersell that. So let's just go with like 60. [00:51:58] Speaker C: Sounds pretty cuz we stay busy. [00:52:01] Speaker D: You're busy most of the time here. [00:52:03] Speaker B: Right from January 2nd to December 15th. [00:52:05] Speaker A: Well, I can tell you this. If. If you are capable or able to pick up more acres, I got guys that would be ready to go. [00:52:13] Speaker B: That always scares me. You know, I want to do a good job. [00:52:18] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:52:18] Speaker B: And I don't want to put somebody out there. [00:52:21] Speaker A: This would be me and directly working with them because I also want to do the best job. So that would be fine with the experience that you have. Dude, I might be over here doing my own thing and making videos and stuff, but that doesn't mean I know everything. [00:52:37] Speaker B: Sure. Nobody. [00:52:38] Speaker A: But exactly. But like coming and you telling me, Mike, you got to do this, you got to do that. What that's going to do is when I go back home, make you better. I'm going to be better. [00:52:47] Speaker B: Iron sharpens iron. [00:52:48] Speaker A: Yep. [00:52:48] Speaker C: All our traveling, we really get to see a lot. And it's how much different it is when we went to. Up in Indiana and Illinois. And it. From what I've heard up, even up to where y' all are, people schedule, there's. They're spraying out and it's. But down here, every. Everybody wants to try and like, I don't know of a co op or a chemical sales place that has a sprayer. Everybody Wants to do their own. And if they're calling us, we'll get. We'll get 20 calls on the same day because it rained and nobody can get in. And that it's. The mindset is completely different for. [00:53:25] Speaker D: So this year most guys have their own ground rigs down here. [00:53:28] Speaker B: Almost everybody really well. [00:53:29] Speaker A: But you're doing some of those acres now. [00:53:31] Speaker B: A lot of them. [00:53:32] Speaker A: Oh yeah. So because they don't want to smash. [00:53:34] Speaker B: Their crop or what compaction running over a crop. It's too wet to get out there cost. So that 4730 sprayer, this. It's got 3000 acre hours on it. And motor blew up last year. It was 30 grand to build a motor for it. I could have bought another drone if it just sold two weeks before that. You know, Henry had the same experience. He bought a sprayer for himself at 4710 and then he got it home and sprayed like one day with it. [00:54:02] Speaker C: And the water blew up. Yeah, I sprayed a day in the. The motor blew up in it and oh, I thought about the drone. This was like a month before I started working with Jesse. And before that I'd done some crop consultant. I was a crop scout and I. We'd actually looked at drones. It was when the T30s were out and we just never did it. And I. I was like, I don't know. I've seen a lot of videos. I'm not sure how well they work. [00:54:25] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:54:25] Speaker C: And then going and doing it and I. I mean even with working, I'm probably going to wind up getting my own personal just for me. [00:54:32] Speaker D: You know the crazy thing, you blow up a motor in a big thing like that and you're spending $30,000 and. [00:54:37] Speaker B: You got no choice about it either. [00:54:38] Speaker C: Yeah, right. [00:54:39] Speaker D: You have a bad. A motor go bad on a drone. 300 bucks. [00:54:42] Speaker C: Yeah, well, unless you crash from the bad motor. But. [00:54:45] Speaker B: Yeah, well that's true. [00:54:46] Speaker A: But that's. [00:54:47] Speaker C: But still. It's still not going to be like you're talking a couple thousand bucks. [00:54:51] Speaker B: Yeah. I think the worst one we ever had was like five grand. And it was. It didn't look like a drone. Yeah, it looked like a Spartage junk. It looked. It looked terrible. And it flew again. [00:55:02] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:55:02] Speaker B: And we still have it. We kind of like these Billy Ray. We don't put a mullet on anything. It's the one I started with. So we had these old guys that worked for us whenever I was a kid. They worked for us since as long as I can remember. They're Dead now. They both died. They were Billy Ray and Red and they were brothers. And anyway, I named my first two drones after them because we used to work together as kids. And I've been all over this country riding with either them on back of the truck or the back seat or in a tractor or something, you know. And so I was like, I was trying to think of a creative name and I was like, ah, just Billy Ray and Rhea. You know, I can send them out there and they can keep. [00:55:38] Speaker A: We had, we had names for our drones, but then they all like hit something or something and it was like, the heck with names. [00:55:46] Speaker D: We couldn't keep up with names anymore. [00:55:49] Speaker B: We had this old ornery guy, they worked for us for a long time. And he would do things like we'd put him on a tractor to dis. He would fold the wings up. Like not all the way up, just high enough where they wasn't in the ground. And he would keep on distant. I'm Talking about not 10 acres, I'm talking about like 100 acres with him turning around and he can, you can see all the way across the field where it's like a strip this. And then like he. But he hit the remote button by accident. Cause he's just an old school farmer who didn't have electronic controls. And he folded the wings up a little bit. So we got one named Gerald Bird. Now we did some burn down and it, it's. It. Gerald streaked up a little bit of burn down. It's kind of windy. And looking back on it, I'm like, he's still at it. He's still doing it. [00:56:35] Speaker C: We did get to see because that was. Both of us were flying that day and we could see, we did a. [00:56:39] Speaker B: Side by side 400 versus 500 Michael. [00:56:42] Speaker C: And. [00:56:43] Speaker D: And you could see the difference. [00:56:44] Speaker A: Oh yeah. [00:56:45] Speaker C: And I, I mean it was, it wasn't big streaks, but it was a little. [00:56:49] Speaker A: It'd be between what, the 500 streak more or the 400? [00:56:53] Speaker C: The 500 didn't streak at all in the 400 streak. Just a little. I mean, it was a little bit windy, but it was a little windy. [00:56:58] Speaker A: That's interesting, dude. You guys have so much knowledge. I would love to come applicate with you guys. Like I have, you know, 11,000, 15,000, 20,000 under my belt with fungicide. But I feel like I could become a better applicator by being with somebody. Guys like yourselves, because you're into the farming industry, you know, chemically a lot more than I do. And you've Done burn down and herbicides that I've never done. Streaking. I want to learn all that stuff. So if you have an opportunity sometime. Yeah, I would probably take you up on it. [00:57:27] Speaker B: No, I mean I would think that you're probably way busier than me. [00:57:30] Speaker A: And I'm pretty, I'm pretty. I'm. I am very busy, but I'm not busy enough. I'm not. [00:57:35] Speaker B: Take a day or three. [00:57:36] Speaker A: Yeah. But I want to learn, right. So if I want to learn, I got to make time. [00:57:40] Speaker B: You ought to come back and see some forestry stuff, man. You would probably. [00:57:43] Speaker A: Dude, I'd love to even just come shoot it and show people what you guys are capable of doing. [00:57:47] Speaker B: It's pretty gnarly to think about, you know, old dead snag tree out there and you're having to go slow enough to blow it down in there and do a good job and, and, and, and then go back and see it. I can show you. [00:57:57] Speaker D: Are you guys pre mapping this stuff? [00:57:59] Speaker B: Yeah. So a lot of times. And that will. [00:58:02] Speaker C: Most a lot of the forestry is not pre map. They'll call us and say, hey, we got. And they never know how many acres they really have. They'll say 40 and it's 20 or it'll be a hundred. Yeah, okay. And you show up and that's where we really do a lot of the mapping with the drone with a hotkey is because we can, we can fly it around and we know where the snack we can mark. You know, waterways that have trees in them still and everything else, you know. [00:58:25] Speaker B: So you have to leave those. [00:58:27] Speaker D: So you guys aren't mapping them with like a matic or anything like that. [00:58:30] Speaker B: We have. [00:58:30] Speaker C: Okay. [00:58:31] Speaker B: But most of the time we just. [00:58:33] Speaker C: Fly around and it's just us. So one of us would have to stop spraying to go map fields. [00:58:39] Speaker B: Yep. [00:58:40] Speaker C: And that's another thing. When going back to the cost again, if we have the fields mapped already, it's a lot quicker. Just pull up there, unfold and go out. If it's mapped, even if I have to download it on the remote, then yeah, having a map, I was gonna. [00:58:54] Speaker B: Look and see how many fields we have mapped right now. [00:58:57] Speaker A: And you use only DJI drones right now? [00:58:59] Speaker B: Right now. [00:58:59] Speaker A: Okay. So what do you. Where do you guys see yourselves going? Are you gonna go the EA route or are you gonna go the T60X ray? [00:59:07] Speaker B: I like Taylor and I like some of the Agris Gray people. A lot of them are really good. I don't want to say something that I'm not Supposed to say no, no, no. [00:59:18] Speaker A: I. I think it's all right. This is like. So I've told Taylor how I feel about the ea. It's not there. In my opinion right now. It's just not there. It's not quite ready. [00:59:27] Speaker B: Right. [00:59:27] Speaker A: Will it get there? It has the opportunity to. But like the way I feel with it right now, it was pushed to the market really, really fast. And so my thing is, if it is so good, why do we have all these problems right now? I think. I think the industry should know that it's okay that you can say how you feel because if. If we have to watch what we're saying just because, oh, this guy is not going. It's not. It's not personal. It's not on a personal level. Right. Like that. I don't like Taylor. Mad respect for him and his company of what he spelled. But as far as the drone, this is what I think of the drone. [01:00:02] Speaker B: I agree. I think it's not there. I think it might be there in a month. They may have it die. Yeah. [01:00:08] Speaker D: They are working on it very fast and they are improving it. [01:00:11] Speaker B: I just. Look, we got 663 fields mapped out that we go to regularly. [01:00:17] Speaker A: Regularly. Wow. Wow. [01:00:19] Speaker C: One of my biggest hang ups on the. And it's. It's not just the ea. It's in general. I don't really like the lidar compared to the having a radar and the. Because I mean how. How often when you land are you having to click? Oh, vision sensors blurred. Especially with fungicide. [01:00:35] Speaker A: It. [01:00:35] Speaker C: We want to. I mean our drones will be nasty and. [01:00:38] Speaker A: Yep, yep. [01:00:38] Speaker C: And Jesse gets on me also. I'm not very good about cleaning off in general. [01:00:42] Speaker A: Yep. [01:00:43] Speaker C: I'll have a drone. I'll have a drone that's white. [01:00:46] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:00:47] Speaker C: And I just feel like the LIDAR is gonna have. So that being the only system on there is gonna have more problems. [01:00:54] Speaker B: There's no redundancy. [01:00:55] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:00:55] Speaker B: With or little redundancy, that camera on there is garbage. [01:01:00] Speaker A: Like that pv. I was told you don't need fpv. That's what he. I mean Taylor's telling me like, do people really use fpv? I was like, I fly out of. [01:01:11] Speaker D: They did a. What? They did a survey? [01:01:12] Speaker A: Yeah, they surveyed people. See what people. [01:01:14] Speaker D: Nobody had an issue. [01:01:16] Speaker A: But I believe Jay the problem was is people just overlook it. It's like we don't even think about it. It's just something that's been on the DJI drones that have been really good because DJI builds cameras. First and then drones next. [01:01:26] Speaker B: The problem with surveys is they go out to everybody. Yeah, well, and I mean, like, look at Family Feud. Have you ever watched that? I mean, they survey those people. The answers they come up with is. You can't. Can't imagine. [01:01:39] Speaker A: Survey says. [01:01:40] Speaker C: Yeah, wrong. On. Like, we toured around with a. With the XAG a little bit, but after having the. The FPV with the. With the dji, I don't know how I would stand there and fly all day and not have a heart attack or a stroke from not being able to see what I'm. Actually. [01:01:57] Speaker A: You guys are gonna flip. The T60.x is insane. The FPV is insane. [01:02:03] Speaker B: They're gonna have to give me, like, some Xanax if I get xav. Just not knowing. It might be great, but just not knowing is what drive me. Me insane. [01:02:15] Speaker A: That's like. I sold a. I sold a DJI drone to a Helio guy, and I asked him about the fpv, and he's like, you got to realize I've been flying drones for two years and never knowing what's going on with. Because he didn't have a camera. It just was so shitty, and he didn't even care about it. [01:02:30] Speaker B: By the way, Helio's not here, right? [01:02:32] Speaker A: Oh, I didn't even know. [01:02:33] Speaker D: I didn't see him, but I didn't even think about it. [01:02:35] Speaker B: I didn't see. [01:02:35] Speaker A: Oh, no. That's. Is. That's not good, is it? That means they're on the. I seen. They're trying to do another crowdfunding thing. They need another million bucks or something. [01:02:44] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. Let me get that out of my front pocket. Oh, no. I don't know. I've looked at that system, and I didn't like the giant controller, you know? [01:02:57] Speaker A: Oh, dude. [01:02:58] Speaker D: Well, it's super expensive, too. [01:02:59] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:03:00] Speaker B: Yeah, you could buy. [01:03:01] Speaker D: How many batteries was Aaron running? [01:03:03] Speaker A: It was ridiculous. It was like, dude, do you remember the guy came up from. Was it Alabama that bought the trailer? [01:03:09] Speaker D: I think he was from Alabama. [01:03:11] Speaker B: Yeah. Watch those guys. [01:03:13] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:03:14] Speaker B: Make sure the check clears all the Alabama guys. [01:03:18] Speaker A: Yeah, well, but he. He had Helio as well, and it was. [01:03:23] Speaker D: He switched. [01:03:23] Speaker A: Yeah. Y. Oh. Anyhow, I like dji. [01:03:26] Speaker B: I really wish that they wasn't under the scrutiny that they're under. I think we've had fairly good success. I think the T40 had some issues, but the T50 is a solid unit. [01:03:37] Speaker A: Yep. I agree. [01:03:38] Speaker B: You can go make a living with the T50. Yep. The T40. We had several crashes that were in my Opinion. [01:03:46] Speaker A: Probably equipment related. Yeah. Yep. [01:03:50] Speaker B: Henry had one that was. They. They ruled it pilot error. But a motor went out and it started spinning in circles and then come down and did it have a load on it? [01:04:00] Speaker C: It was full. [01:04:01] Speaker A: Okay. [01:04:02] Speaker C: It wasn't. [01:04:02] Speaker A: What would have happened if you wouldn't have tried to take it over manually. [01:04:06] Speaker C: I didn't have time to take it over manually. It was on. On route. It tax. It went out and started the route and it just. I. My. I was like, why the heck is my camera spinning? And I look up and it's just. And that was it. It wasn't. There was no warning. [01:04:20] Speaker A: Okay. So I wondered about that. Could a 50 handle a full load with a motor out? No. [01:04:25] Speaker B: No, no. And it doesn't matter if it's 4 motor, 8 motor. If it's designed to pick that load up. They're not going to design something with twice as many motors. So if, I mean if you on. [01:04:37] Speaker D: The 50s will fly with one motor. [01:04:38] Speaker A: Empty. Empty. [01:04:39] Speaker B: Empty. [01:04:40] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:04:40] Speaker D: I had a motor go bad mid flight and it. [01:04:42] Speaker B: But not fine. Not full. Yeah. [01:04:44] Speaker C: Yeah. I think you can overcome that issue. If it's empty but it's. It's too much. Your one side's just gonna end up. [01:04:50] Speaker D: Yeah. Honestly, like it flew pretty good, but you could tell the one side was kind of light. Like it weren't. [01:04:55] Speaker B: I had two motors. I. I was. One of my first time I was doing cover crop. You know the plastic stuff they put around the pallets of bags. [01:05:02] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:05:03] Speaker B: It was like my first year and I was doing cover crop and I didn't realize that that drone would suck that up. It was a 40 and I was like gonna move the drone to the other side of the trailer. And I was by myself and I'm like, I just fly it over there and I opened up that plastic and it sucked it up and it stopped two motors and that thing was empty. But that T40 flew and I landed it with two motors, sucked up that plastic wrap and I just cut it out and cleaned it up and I finished the job. [01:05:28] Speaker A: Wow. [01:05:29] Speaker B: But when people say these four motor drones and you lose a motor, it's going down. Well, I mean if you. I think the eight motor drones the same way. If it's loaded. [01:05:38] Speaker D: If it's loaded. [01:05:38] Speaker B: If it's loaded, it's going down. But if it's. I mean, I'm not in the business of fly empty drones. [01:05:44] Speaker A: Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah. So we're not flying empty drones most of the time. [01:05:48] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean it's not desirable. I mean, I'd rather be full all day long, but you got to fill it up. [01:05:54] Speaker C: Probably my personal biggest hang up just. And they could fix it with that with the J100. Is the no geofencing. I think no geofencing. Like for airports and stuff. Well, for airports and football stadiums and water treatment plants. You know, like that it has or it doesn't have. [01:06:12] Speaker A: Why do you want it? [01:06:13] Speaker C: Because somebody could do something with one of these drones and we wouldn't be able to have drones anymore. [01:06:17] Speaker A: Oh, you know, that's coming off. [01:06:18] Speaker B: And I had to sign a terrorism waiver on our insurance this year. [01:06:22] Speaker D: Really? [01:06:23] Speaker B: Yeah. You don't have to do that. [01:06:24] Speaker A: Oh, we haven't had to yet. But now if they listen to this, they're gonna be like, oh, I gotta get Mike to do that. [01:06:29] Speaker B: Yeah, I had to sign a terrorism waiver. I'm not a bad guy. [01:06:35] Speaker C: So I mean it's a, it's a real. [01:06:36] Speaker D: I don't think terrorists are gonna worry about insurance. [01:06:38] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:06:39] Speaker A: Me. [01:06:40] Speaker C: It's a, a real world issue that could cause it. I mean who cares what country it comes from if, if somebody can do that with it, so. [01:06:47] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. So I mean you load up a, a drone with some bad stuff and fly it into a Super bowl, you know. [01:06:55] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:06:57] Speaker B: At least try to stop it. You know, at least put something. I mean I know a fence isn't going to stop a burglar, but it is a fence. [01:07:05] Speaker A: So I, I have some predictions on that. On those high, high roller events like that. I think there's going to be a Geo fence. Not, not that you can't try to fly it in, but there's going to be like a magnetic fence that doesn't actually allow it. [01:07:22] Speaker B: I won't be able to walk through there. Mike. My leg gets stuck. [01:07:25] Speaker D: All of a sudden you get sucked up over it. [01:07:27] Speaker A: Damn. Where you going? [01:07:28] Speaker B: I got a ticket. [01:07:35] Speaker A: We took that the wrong way. Not a true magnetic like suck you in. I'm talking like a, like that, like a Bluetooth fence. Because when I drive my Tesla into a Tesla dealership, they know the moment I get on there because it's all Bluetooth surrounded. [01:07:50] Speaker B: Oh yeah, what I'm thinking fcc. Have you seen that where their FCC is coming after a couple of different manufacturers on the drone. The power of the drone remote, the wattage that it's put down and stuff like that. I think we're going to go to a cellular based system. So. Yeah, you could, they can monitor because like the matrice, you've flown that a bunch. And you can see other commercial aircraft on the radar whenever they, it's like it'll show their altitude like 7, 400ft and they're coming over you, you know. So I think that we're going to go to a cellular based system is what I'm saying. [01:08:27] Speaker A: It'd be better. [01:08:28] Speaker B: I would too. I think so. Because then you could use cellular based towers to do your RTK corrections. [01:08:34] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:08:35] Speaker B: Or create a virtual RTK network off this, the cellular card in the drone. And then you don't necessarily need fpv. Obstacle avoidance should be getting better. I would like to have fpv. But if you have that cellular connection and at least you know that the drones running the route and say that we can see the altitude, we can see the pump flow, we could see just your parameters in the bottom of the remote that you're normally seeing and you're maybe not getting the image, at least you know, everything's okay. [01:09:07] Speaker C: Well, I mean, without knowing our pump flow and stuff, like last year I had a pump meter. It was a pump meter. Went out, didn't it? [01:09:14] Speaker B: Yeah, it was the, I think it ended up being the board on the back of the 40. [01:09:17] Speaker C: You know, it was saying it was putting out like 2.3 gallons per minute, but I'd put out a load in two and a half acres and something, something wrong was, wasn't right. [01:09:26] Speaker B: So, you know, that's something that people need to take into account to your flight summaries. You know, if you're supposed to be getting 6 acres or 7 acres or 5 load on a load, then when it comes back, your route summary needs to say 5.3 acres or 7.5 acres. You need to see that and confirm that, you know, because you could be over applicating and not know. [01:09:47] Speaker A: And that's good. [01:09:47] Speaker C: Some of the stuff, it could cost you a lot of money to. [01:09:49] Speaker B: A lot of money. [01:09:50] Speaker D: Do, do you guys, when you calibrate your drones, do you guys calibrate each different chemical or is it you calibrate. [01:09:56] Speaker B: It once and be putting out by volume? [01:09:59] Speaker A: Yep. [01:10:00] Speaker B: And the book answer is going to be we calibrate it every time. But the reality is you got a flow meter, you got scales, we know how many acres are supposed to be coming out of that drone. And whenever you get on your first flight and you know you got two and a half acres down and it's got five gallons left, we're right on the money. [01:10:19] Speaker A: Yep. [01:10:20] Speaker B: And it'll be within the hundredth of a gallon it's so good. [01:10:23] Speaker C: We have more issues with having to calibrate a lot for dry spreading than. [01:10:26] Speaker A: Yes. Yeah. So the dry spreading of the T50 system, the. The free flow of coming through the gate doesn't seem like a good system. But that auger system on the T60X, I really like that. So that sucker was within one pound. Accuracy. On the. The load and the acres. I was impressed. [01:10:44] Speaker B: So we did what, 500 acres of spike 20p. And we did it in the afternoon hours. Yeah. We sprayed all day long and then we went and flew 500 acres in the evening and we. It was supposed to be put out at £10 acre and we got it within a 10 10th of a pound. [01:11:03] Speaker A: Wow. [01:11:03] Speaker C: On some stuff, it's going to depend on what you want. These are bigger, though. That's like a. It's a herbicide. [01:11:09] Speaker B: Yes. [01:11:09] Speaker C: But it's. It's like granular. [01:11:11] Speaker D: Okay. [01:11:11] Speaker C: It's almost like little pellets. [01:11:13] Speaker A: So it's kind of like a fertilizer granule. [01:11:16] Speaker B: It looks like a pellet grill pellet. [01:11:18] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:11:19] Speaker B: But it looks like you made them out of clay. [01:11:20] Speaker A: Okay. So it's consistent. [01:11:22] Speaker C: Yes, it's very consistent. [01:11:23] Speaker B: Very consistent product. [01:11:24] Speaker C: We also did a job doing rye grass, and between two different, like, we had two different varieties and there was like two different lots with each variety. And we had differences between the lots with the same variety. [01:11:35] Speaker B: Yes. So, like you would, you know, I ordered like eight pallets of rye grass for this job, and there was two different lots and we. We got through the first couple of pallets and I'm like, wait, what, what's. What's. We're putting out too much or too little. Whatever the case was. They got to look and it's a different lot number. And we had to recount. [01:11:52] Speaker C: The weights were different between. [01:11:53] Speaker B: The weights were different on the bags. Like, one would have like 62 pounds and one would have like 66 if you filled it all up. [01:11:59] Speaker A: Wow. [01:12:00] Speaker B: You know, it's the same volume, it's the same hopper. [01:12:02] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:12:03] Speaker B: It was like four to six pounds off. [01:12:05] Speaker A: I was doing a clover, and I feel like the 50s struggle with getting it right on clover. [01:12:11] Speaker B: Well, because rates really low. Right. [01:12:12] Speaker A: It's so. [01:12:13] Speaker D: Rates low. And the seed is so, so small. [01:12:16] Speaker A: It'll find a crack to go through. [01:12:18] Speaker B: And most people won't pay for clover down here. [01:12:21] Speaker A: Okay. [01:12:21] Speaker B: They want rye grass, wheat oats, and we put what's. What we do. [01:12:28] Speaker C: For Tim, it was some sort of brassica, like a leafy. [01:12:31] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:12:32] Speaker A: Those seeds are normally nicer to spread well over or. [01:12:35] Speaker B: No, it was like two pounds of these. It looked like pepper. They're super tiny, like a mustard seed. And it was like a leafy. It almost looked like a. Almost grows like a mustard, too, but it has some graze. It had nutritional value for a cow, which, like a wild turnip, won't have much nutritional value. And they don't really want to eat them either. But. So it was. I think it's called a rape or. [01:12:59] Speaker C: You know, something like that. [01:13:00] Speaker B: Something like that. Anyway, so we would like mixing. We'd do a bag of like a tripoid rye grass. We do a scoop of that, and then we do a bag of like a bipoid rye grass. And we was like mixing it. Just not super precise, but the weight per acre was good. [01:13:17] Speaker A: That's cool. All right, so we're gonna close this thing. But what is one thing that you would tell somebody that wants to get into drone spray business? [01:13:28] Speaker B: Be prepared to work a lot of hours. There you go. Be prepared to get sunburnt. Use the wind as a favor. Keep the wind at your back. Don't. Don't use any chemical that you're not 100% sure that you're not going to hurt yourself. You're not going to expose yourself to something. You're not going to get cancer in 40 years. [01:13:48] Speaker A: That's good. That's good. That's actually something you think about. [01:13:51] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:13:51] Speaker A: No way. [01:13:52] Speaker B: Well, I'm cancer survivor. [01:13:54] Speaker A: Awesome. [01:13:54] Speaker B: Bone cancer. Yeah. [01:13:56] Speaker A: Would you say it came from chemical? [01:13:58] Speaker B: Nah. I was seven. [01:14:01] Speaker A: Okay. So you are actually watching the chemical because you're like, the heck that I'm getting cancer. [01:14:07] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:14:07] Speaker A: That's good. [01:14:07] Speaker B: Well, I mean, there's things that I think are overrated. Right. Like I don't think glyphosate's real dangerous, but gramoxone. Yeah. Is real dangerous. Okay. [01:14:16] Speaker C: And we don't know how did somebody. [01:14:18] Speaker A: Learn about what it. How. Why is that dangerous? Why do you think that is dangerous? How does. How does somebody learn that? [01:14:24] Speaker B: Well, it has a lethal death dose. [01:14:26] Speaker C: Partially on the label. [01:14:27] Speaker A: Okay. Okay. [01:14:28] Speaker C: Well, there's like a signal word, like for gramoxin. It's a. [01:14:31] Speaker B: It's danger with skull and crossbones. And with Roundup, there's nothing. I mean, you can walk in Walmart, buy Roundup. So, I mean, you know, any idiot can buy Roundup. Yeah. If it's restricted. If you open the cap and there's tinfoil in there, you need to be careful. You know, if you go. If it's got skull and crossbones on it. You open the cap. There's a safety mechanism on the cap, and there's tinfoil in there. It's real bad. [01:14:54] Speaker A: Okay, see, that's good. That's good because somebody that opens the. A cap and scenes sees a safety cap and then sees a tinfoil. Now they know. I heard it on the. On the podcast. [01:15:05] Speaker B: Be careful. [01:15:07] Speaker A: That's good. [01:15:07] Speaker B: Don't drink it. Don't get any eyes. Don't get any open cuts. You know, don't take a bath in it. You know, it's. [01:15:13] Speaker C: It's bad stuff. [01:15:15] Speaker A: Wow. [01:15:15] Speaker B: It's bad stuff. Cool. [01:15:17] Speaker A: Hey, guys. Really appreciate you coming on. Yeah, appreciate it. [01:15:19] Speaker B: Nice to meet you. [01:15:20] Speaker A: Yep.
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