DropCopter of Corning, California, works on the automated pollination of orchard crops via unmanned aircraft systems (UAS). It strives for farming efficiency, the promotion of new technologies and healthy crop yield growth.
Every year growers need bees to pollinate their flowers. If there are not enough bees, there’s not enough fruit. Dropcopter basically supplements the amount of lost bees by flying over those same flowers and dropping pollen using a drone.
Now the pollination UAS start-up has secured $250,000 from the Syracuse based GENIUS NY accelerator. Their pollination drone service is the first in the world to use automated multi-rotors to dust almonds, pistachios and cherries, boosting crop set by as much as a tested 15%!
They’re alternative to expensive bee pollination is much-needed, as the former has risen in price by 100% over 10 years. The recent decline in bee population is cutting into farmers margins and raising the price of food at the grocery store. Dropcopter can alleviate that while delivering a profit to the growers, using minimal resources and manual labour.
Dropcopter is using the funds to reproduce their patent-pending pollinator for planned night time operations over local New York orchards. Night-time doubles the operating window, as cold temperatures prevent bees from flying.
Source: Fresh Plaza