Drones provide ranchers with another set of eyes

Technology is rapidly advancing in the cattle business, from specialized ear tags to unmanned aerial vehicles or drones that remotely monitor cattle. These wireless-in-the-sky cameras can monitor a cattle operation and notify a producer by cell phone.

A drone won't eliminate the need to physically oversee the ranch, but an extra set of eyes in the sky can assist with ranch management.

There are numerous uses for drones on a cattle ranch that include:

• Drones can collect more data with much less labor and give a new perspective that's not visible from the ground.
• Drones can provide aerial maps that are a valuable tool for planning grazing, crop rotations, infrastructure development and more.
• They can create a high-resolution map of a ranch using flight planning software and photogrammetry software that combines several overlapping photos into one georeferenced map.
• Drones can monitor livestock, fences and water sources. Some drones can be outfitted with near-infrared cameras that detect heat and can be used to locate strays or find animals in heavy cover or rough terrain.
• Drones can collect data on individual animals with new technologies that are being developed that would allow producers to monitor individual animals. An RFID reader logs unique tag numbers that alert the producer when a particular animal was not detected. Some tags can even monitor temperature and behavior to identify health issues.

Kevin Kester, a cattle rancher and owner of Bear Valley Ranch in Parkfield, purchased a drone initially to monitor trespassers and other illegal activity.

"We have a lot of hunter trespass issues as well as the Mexican cartel trying to put (marijuana) grow sites in and around the hills," Kester said.

The ranch has over 20 miles of water lines, water troughs, stock ponds and tanks that took many man-hours to manage, whereas a drone can quickly monitor the water lines, so Kester started using the drone.

Then Kester began looking at the cattle and discovered they will move when they hear the drone rotors.

"We found out we could move cattle of all sorts across steep terrain, canyons and whatnot, where it would take a long time for horses, quads or dogs to try to move them the same way," Kester said.

Another benefit was reducing the operation's carbon footprint, he said.

"Instead of using pickups to travel our jeep trails to monitor the water systems, we can use the drone instead. And the same thing driving around the ranch looking for people. We can use the drone, so we can save a lot of time," Kester said, adding "and it also reduces our gas and diesel inputs which has environmental benefits."

Kester said they have a Phantom 4 commercial class drone and, surprisingly, there wasn't a big learning curve to using it.

The drone has many safeguard features. For instance, when it gets low on battery use, it comes back to the operator. It also has front and back sensors to avoid objects like trees, transmission lines and fences, Kester said. And if the drone does go down, it has a GPS map that shows exactly where it is.

"It's easy to fly, and you can either buy a dedicated screen for it, or put your iPhone or Android phone or tablet on the controller and use it. The HD quality on the video is just outstanding," Kester said, adding it's very easy to operate.

In terms of cost, it varies, he said.

"You could certainly go up to $2,500 or more on the commercial class drones, batteries and accessories," Kester said.

"With our drone, we bought three additional batteries. Each battery now has a life of about 30 minutes of fly time," Kester said, adding he also purchased a dedicated screen, which brought the total cost to just over $2,000.

But Kester's drone quickly paid for itself in labor savings alone, he said.

Cow health is another function Kester sees as a use for drones in the future.

"It's almost unlimited to think what the possibilities could be," Kester said, adding the technology is advancing so rapidly that he anticipates even more uses for his drone in the future.

"Again, the way things are progressing so fast, things we can't even think about now could have potential possibilities in the very near future," Kester said.

Currently, Kester said he sees a big labor savings.

"If we can travel a drone five or 10 miles on a loop to check water systems, I mean you can do that in just a few minutes," Kester said, "compared to several hours on the ground, and those kinds of savings add up fast."

Kester also has two vineyards on the ranch, and they do overhead flights on the vineyard monitoring for disease.

"We use that GIS technology on the drones to go over all sorts of different farming operations," he said.

Sean Hogan, academic coordinator for the University of California Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources, has been doing research with UAVs in a variety of agricultural settings, including open rangeland.

Hogan has created elevation models through photogrammetry with the drone imagery. He is also using a drone to monitor invasive weeds like yellow starthistle that grow on rangelands.

Ranchers could use a drone to monitor the success/failure of reducing these weed species on their rangeland, Hogan said.

Research will continue indefinitely, and Hogan currently has several ongoing projects.

"I'm still looking at forage production, invasive species, post-fire recovery. I have a couple of projects that are related to that where we're looking at the functional plant types that grow back after either a forest fire or grassland fire," Hogan said.

"And where that's important is, depending on your grazing intensity, that might dictate what kinds of plants grow back at what rate and establish themselves on the landscape. That will in turn probably have a significant impact on the profitability of using that land in the future," Hogan said.

(Kathy Coatney is a reporter in Bend, Ore. She may be contacted at kacoatney@gmail.com.)