Adrian - 1/19/2020 08:10

I appreciate your response.
Sorry I have been on the road lately

Could you tell us what all is involved in doing what you've done?
I used a DJI Mavic Pro 2 (sells now for about $900? newer model coming out this year). Sentera support most DJI models. The process is simple with Sentera's Field Agent app that works on a phone or Pad. Select your field boundary, select scouting option, load plan into the drone, push the button and wait till it comes back and land.

Remove the memory card, upload the images collected (about 1 image per acre). Then I waited about half an hour and got back the results. (cost about $0.25 last year). Then with the app you can go into the field and ground-truth the results.

About how much money do you have tied up in your drone?
With the case, extra batteries (I have 6) and a few other options... about $2,000. (remember it is about $400 less today)

How much in software?
Used Sentera's software, they have a desktop version besides the phone app. The annual cost is some where the the $350-$400 range. I used other high end software also to interpolate the image I posted.

How long do you spend actually doing the flying and gathering data?
160 acre field...30 minutes

What did the company that did the stand counts for you charge per acre?
see above

How long after you flew the field did it take to get your results?
see above

Yeah, that's a lot of questions, sorry about that, but I'm just curious about the utility of these things.
email me ... more than willing to help

Adrian