Ranching from the sky

In the not too distant future, ranchers will use the information gathered by an unmanned aerial vehicle to count their cattle, identify where a water line breaks and figure out the moisture content of their soil and plants. On Thursday, area farmers and ranchers were offered free lunch and an opportunity to learn more about integrating unmanned aerial vehicles — drones — into their business. “You remember when they first introduced ATVs and everybody thought there wouldn’t be any use for them, but now we’re upset when our second one needs to be fixed?” queried Ruth Evelyn Cowan during the “community perspectives” segment. “That’s what these drones — I’m sorry — UAVs, will be like in a few years.” Ranchers can use the technology to count the number of cattle in a given area, identify weed patches on their property, improve water conservation and conduct surveillance for protection, Soto said. After a brief demonstration of a UAV outside the hangar, the crowd listened to Mary Darling of Darling Geomatics for the second presentation. Darling said her company used a drone to map one mile of the Horseshoe Draw on the John Ladd property in Palominas. The drone was programed to gather survey information, providing the detail for a three-dimensional illustration that is accurate up to two-inches. For a manned team to complete the same survey of the draw — which Darling said took the drone about an hour to complete — it would require three people three days to accomplish...more