S4E5: Operating a Drone business in 2025 w/ RiehlWay Ag

Recorded: 9/25/25

Drones have come onto the agricultural scene hard and fast here in Pennsylvania. In the last few years, interest in operating drones for fungicide, herbicide application, and cover cropping has increased immensely. In this episode, Ryan and Dwane sit down with Ephraim Riehl, Matthew Riehl, and David Stoltzfus, founders of a Lancaster-based agricultural drone business to discuss the basics of operating drones in 2025.  

Hosts: Ryan Spelman and Dwane Miller 
Guests: Ephraim Riehl, Matthew Riehl, David Stoltzfus

Links:
Drone Seeding Cover Crops into Standing Soybeans
How to Become an Aerial (Drone) Pesticide Applicator
Riehl Way Ag Instagram
In Amish country, drone dream takes flight

Photo credit: Ephraim Riehl 

Sign up for our newsletter, Field Crop News, and follow us on Facebook!

Transcript

Ryan Spelman (00:18)
welcome to another episode of the Agronomy Highlights podcast. I'm your host, Ryan Spelman.

and I'm joined here with my lovely co-host and colleague, Dwayne Miller. Dwayne, how are you doing today? Hey, I'm doing great, Ryan. Thanks. It's finally raining here in Pennsylvania. I here we are. We're at the end of September. Today's September the 25th. And I know a lot of farmers that are finally smiling because we're getting some much needed rain across the area. Yeah, that's right. think so.

One of our colleagues, Leanna, sent me this ⁓ graphic from my area, which is in Martinsburg, and we have had the longest stretch of no rain in my area since 1954. That's incredible. That's incredible. Which is also incredible when you're actually walking the fields and yes, everything's droughty, but there's stuff to harvest. So there is that. It's kind of a testament to

All the rain that we had in the spring that kind of held our groundswell water up for a little bit and then maybe some of the genetics that are out there today. anyways. think so too, right? You you go back to 1950, whatever. I'm not sure that there would be much of a crop to harvest from back then. I think our genetics have come a long way. You're right. right.

Yeah, yeah, that's right. I think it's a combination of factors, but it is amazing. And so it is raining today, which is wonderful. We're finally getting it. So for some of these earlier season and we're recording on September 25th, I think this episode won't come out until a little bit later into October. But one of the topics today is our drone operations. And one of the things that drones do well is broadcasting cover crops.

And what's really important is that we get moisture after that cover crop, right? So I think this is a fitting day to talk about this as people are starting to think about cover crop seeding with drones and drones are at the top of the mind right now. So what you There's a lot of buzz about drones and no pun intended to their, maybe the sound that they make when they're hovering over those crop fields. But yeah, in the last couple of years, you know, we've been getting questions about

What are the capabilities of these ag drones now? Now that they've been in the market for a while, if their price has come down a little bit, I'm thinking about it, what do I do? What are my first steps? So I think we've got an episode here today that maybe answers some of those questions for folks if they're interested in learning more about ag drones and how to get involved in that. Yeah, definitely. I think one of the things I often think about is

is as we're seeing this large scale adoption of drones in our agricultural communities, as Penn State Extension and agronomists and scientists, we don't have a lot of the answers yet, right, on some of the research science around this because a lot of it hasn't been done yet. And so we're in a case where we're starting to learn from folks in industry and kind of learning what they're doing.

And then using that to inform studies that we can start to learn about how to better tweak these operations. So anyways, this is an opportunity today for us to learn from industry and I'm really excited. So if you're an agronomist out there that wants to learn more about how drones are actually being implemented in the real world, this would be a great episode. And if you're a farmer or someone who is interested in getting into drone operation,

This is like a mini crash course, hopefully, for folks that want to do it. with that, I'm really excited to introduce our guests.

Ryan Spelman (04:01)
have Efrem, Matthew and David from RealWayAg. They are a drone operating business, an agricultural drone business.

So maybe you guys can start. And I think Matthew is going to take this question and tell us how you guys got into agricultural drones and what your company does.

Ephraim Riehl (04:20)
Yeah, so kind of how I got into it. I used to watch a lot of drone videos when I was like 14, 15 on YouTube and I started following a guy from out in Ohio that does drone de-recovery. So I actually bought a thermal drone back, be like almost two years ago now. And that kind of, I went out to get some training in Ohio for that, for the thermal drone de-recovery.

And then over that time he had started getting into ag. So he had like all his trailers and the drones there. That obviously got me really excited about that as well. I came back from there and I don't know, talked to my brothers about it. Yeah, I think a little bit. Yeah, it was like probably March or February of what? 24. Right. Matthew comes back from Ohio and he's all excited about these ag drones. Cause I remember I was working for my dad at the time. We have a

timber framing company here locally and I was in the shop and Matt comes in there he's all excited hyped up about this this whole ag drone right everybody's been talking about the the big drones and spraying lots of acres and what do you think you know should we do it right yeah I mean that's and that's kind of where it all started from that conversation to having you know multiple sit downs and then David getting in the picture which he was kind of getting out of his he had a small framing company right you and your brother

And the timing just kind of worked for the three of us to, hey, let's dive into this and give it 100 % and see what can happen. We weren't even up and running until probably a half year after that. That was like early spring of last year until we even started, it was kind of late summer, end of fungicide season. And then we did some cover cropping primarily. That was about it like last year. That was kind of the start of it, I guess.

Dwane Miller (06:11)
So you started with, you said ⁓ David, a thermal, or sorry, Matthew, you started with a thermal drone, right?

Ephraim Riehl (06:17)
Yeah, so I do a drone deer recovery. I find people's pets. A lot of cat recoveries and dog recoveries, stuff like that.

Dwane Miller (06:26)
So

you're still doing that part of it in addition to the ag work now. I did hear folks mention going out to Ohio there and learning about deer recovery. And I immediately thought of pets. And you did mention finding lost critters, too. I think that would be a great opportunity for somebody to have a drone to do that.

Ephraim Riehl (06:29)
We'll do that,

Dwane Miller (06:52)
Go ahead.

Ephraim Riehl (06:53)
No, go ahead. You're good.

Dwane Miller (06:55)
So you said it took to where you guys based out of. So let's let's talk a little bit about geography.

Ephraim Riehl (07:01)
So we're located in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. So southeastern part of the state more or less.

mean majority of our work is maybe within two hours of Lancaster. We have traveled you know three to four hours some parts of Maryland. Right now we're licensed in what four different states David.

David Stoltzfus (07:20)
Yeah,

we're licensed in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and New Jersey.

Ephraim Riehl (07:26)
Yeah, so we'll kind of go like so next week we're actually going ⁓ so I guess I don't know when this is going to launch but we are today is Thursday, September 25th and so next week we're going to be going down to Virginia. We got about thousand acres to cover crop down there yet and that is going to be wheat is that we're putting some weed down David, barley, rye. I'm putting rye down. Thank you. So it'll be done rye and that's going into beans primarily I think.

David Stoltzfus (07:47)
Right.

beans and some corn.

Ephraim Riehl (07:56)
Yeah, so I kind of went down a trail there, but yeah, we're here in, you know, in Lancaster County and we'll kind of go wherever that, you know, we're licensed in those four states and right now we're hungry, willing to work. So wherever we can kind of go to find work, we're willing to travel. I guess if that makes sense.

Ryan Spelman (08:13)
Yeah, great. So I think you covered a few things that I kind of want to follow up on there. First of all, you mentioned cover cropping. That's one of the services you guys offer. Now, I'm going to give you a second to kind of mention maybe what all the services you offer and give us kind of a good snapshot of your business, your agricultural business. And then after that, later on in the episode, I want to cover a little bit of the licensing, because I think that's where a lot of us and other operators have

a lot of questions. maybe you can give us a snapshot. What are the drone operations, know, cover cropping, spraying that you guys do a lot of and maybe what does the best in your area and where are you seeing the interest right now?

David Stoltzfus (08:54)
Yeah, so like you said, the main thing is spraying and cover cropping. Yeah, we did a job in the spring where we helped this solar panel company. We flew up some solar panels for a guy. They were covering ⁓ a chicken house in solar panels. So Matt, you did that, right? Yeah. So yeah, we just rigged up a strap on the drone and

Yeah, just lifted up solar panels for him. I can see, can definitely see a demand for things outside of ag even and with the technology that the drones are coming with and where they're gonna go as far as like, there's drones coming out with winches on them and that can hold just a huge, a lot of weight.

Ephraim Riehl (09:40)
We even did, not to interrupt, we even did some shading on greenhouses this spring. We were scratching and clawing startup companies, so get a bit of capital invested. we're like, man, anything we can do with the drones, this is great. So we did some shading in greenhouses even. So that was kind of a cool experience. So kind of circle back to your question. I would say primarily we're drawing fungicide on either wheat or corn.

We'll probably do close to around 10,000, 11,000 acres this year. And probably 65 % of that would be fungicide, I would guess, on tassel corn and wheat. So that's one thing the drones are really great at. We have done some burn downs. They're capable of doing burn downs 100%. But if you're up against your mom's vegetable patch or her yard or whatever, you've got to make sure that the homeowner knows.

we're not going to paint a hard line, you know, flying from the air. And most people realize that, right? Most people understand that there's some scenarios where the drones ain't that great when it comes to don't want to burn down. But if you've got a road frontage on the one side or a tree line here and there, you know, they're definitely, they'll definitely knock it out. So yeah, with that, I would say then into the cover cropping, what are we using mostly?

Right? So we're using rye, brassica, clover, like some of the smaller seeds that'll germinate a little better. And those are primarily going in, you know, before the, before the crop loses its leaves, you know, the beans, especially we try to get that in before it loses the leaves. And that kind of create a little bit of a moisture barrier to cover up them seeds and those smaller seeds, you know, I get a good rain or two. That's really all you need to, get them guys grown before the winter.

So hopefully that kind of answers that. We have done like pastures and stuff as well, like foliar applications. We've done some granular fertilizer as well on pastures and even some food plots. You'd be amazed at what guys pay to have you come out and do some work on their farms. So that's possible. But yeah, I would say 90 % probably agriculture related, the other 10%, maybe some odd jobs, some pastures.

We did a neat project just last weekend where a guy had us come out and spray for lantern flies, right? He has got like a tree farm up here in Schuylkill County. He's got like 900 acres, I believe, primarily Christmas trees and stuff, but he had like 50 acres of shade trees and the drones. I was really impressed. I was up with David and just kind of watching the drones, you know, work over the topography of the trees, you know, up and down. We had it on orchard mode and it literally.

From a five foot shade tree to almost 30 foot, I mean, it would just climb and it just continuous motion. It did a super job. So hopefully no more lantern flies.

Dwane Miller (12:32)
Well, that's really interesting to hear the breadth of opportunities that are out there for you guys in this field. You mentioned a possible drawback of using a drone versus another type of a sprayer system is you don't get that hard line when you're spraying. But can you talk to us about what do you feel are the main advantages of drones over a traditional spray rig and then any other disadvantages that you see of them?

You talked about a little bit about the advantages in that situation you were up in Schuylkill with varying heights and able to cover.

Ephraim Riehl (13:08)
Well, yeah, I some of the more obvious ones, guess, would be like, so no soil compaction if you're going in with a big rig, right? A ground rig to do a burn down or whatever you're spraying. So you're eliminating that. No tire marks, you know, equals no damage crop. So that's always great. Whether it's a large field or a small field, at some point you're turning around or, you know, you're running down rows of something, right? So those are some of the things that also, I guess, moisture, it doesn't matter how wet the ground is.

Now, it depends on what you're spraying. If you're spraying a certain chemical on the crop, you want to be careful how wet it is, even if you can get in there and do it aerially, because you can hurt the crop. If you've got some beans standing in water and you spray them, the plants already distress. It's probably not a good time to spray some Roundup on your Roundup Ready beans. But it doesn't matter. You get a good rain. You don't have to wait three days till it dries off. We can be there the next day or two, whatever, and knock it out.

⁓ So those would be some of the pros. And then we touched a little bit on the cons as far as what product you're spraying. mean, some more pros would be like, you compare a drone size-wise to a crop duster, yeah, maybe it can't compare size-wise, right? Tank capacity for one, I think there's quite a bit of a difference there. But as far as a good consistent application,

You take a drone versus an airplane or a helicopter, like we've watched it this year, like side by side down in Maryland, doing a project where we had a helicopter in the field right next to us, right? You they come in over the power lines and the spray is going everywhere. And then there's a fence row on the other end of the field. You know, they're already pulling up well before they're at the end of the field. know, and spray has just gone all over the place. So around woods edges and power lines, the drones will do a lot better of a, you know, an even application.

versus a crop duster. I I feel like there's gonna be a need for both. I don't think we're replacing airplanes, but I think we're giving them a run for it in some areas, if that makes sense.

Dwane Miller (15:10)
We've got a lot of small, irregularly shaped fields here in Pennsylvania, right? So topography might lend itself to using a drone pretty well.

Ephraim Riehl (15:21)
Yeah. I guess another thing we could kind of follow up with that with all the different spraying and the different things we get into. You think about sending a drone out there, right? And it's only gone for like seven or eight minutes, but you most times that's enough. Your battery's already charged up when it comes back. So the drone's constant. Obviously you're landing, you know, you're maybe sitting on the trailer for a minute or two, the battery's swapped and the tank's filled.

And you're right back at so it can get a little monotonous. You know, we put in some long days for sure. We're fungicide season where we sprayed a good bit like through the nighttime. So, you know, we sprayed more than once right up to three a.m. And then, you know, you're back up in a few hours and spraying the rest of that next day and even into the next day. So, I mean, that's fine. But, you know, glad fungicide season isn't, you know, 10 months out of the year because we burned out a long time ago. Right. So.

Yeah. Yeah.

Ryan Spelman (16:18)
that I mean it does seeing the the effort that folks are putting in during that spray season it is a lot of work and and the the rig that you're using and the trailer becomes incredibly important and and I think what you guys are speaking to kind of all of the variability of all the different jobs you do probably helps to keep it interesting and in times of the year that it's not time for fungicide you know

there are other things you can be doing and it helps to break it up, I'm sure. So one of the questions that I have is you talked a little bit about getting licensed in different states. Do you guys, what was, how did you guys find the information on how you need to get certified in Pennsylvania and then in other states? And what are some of the requirements right now in 2025 for you to do this?

David Stoltzfus (17:08)
Yeah. So, basically I just, well, I have, I mean, I know people that are farmers that have their private applicators license. So I talked to some of them and also just looked up, you know, PA plants online, got a phone number, gave them a phone call. They directed me to the right website and I went from there. then as far as like the other States, so, most of those States, they reciprocate their certification with PA. So if you have your PA certification,

you can reciprocate it over into the neighboring state. And some of them do require you to take an extra test. other than that, it's pretty similar from state to state. that was, know, once that was, I mean, it's a big thing to get out of the way. So.

Ryan Spelman (17:52)
Sure, yeah, we do a lot of the pesticide education for Pennsylvania, so we understand the testing, the struggles with testing, and it does take some studying. So I'd imagine you probably need a commercial applicator's license to do the kind of work you're doing, right? then, yeah, okay. And do you have any other licenses to fly the drone that you would also need on top of that?

David Stoltzfus (18:18)
Yeah, so with that comes the part 107, which that's your remote pilot's license that covers you to fly any drone under 55 pounds. And then you have the part 137, which allows you to spray from the air with an aircraft. And then there's the part 4, 4, 807 exemption, which exempts you to fly a drone over 55 pounds.

And then you're also going to have to register your drone with the FAA and they'll give you what's called an N number. And that N number is basically like a license plate for your drone. Like that's how they identify your drone.

And that is also like, so how I got that was there is companies out there and we planned off with us at some point too, where we can sell a package deal where you just sign up and send us your information. And then we submit that to the FAA and we'll just, we'll basically just, whenever we need your signature, we're just email you a form. You can e-sign and send that back and we'll send it over to the FAA. Process took, I think it was like,

say four, four months probably. So was all said and done.

Ephraim Riehl (19:28)
Yeah. Yeah, so it doesn't happen overnight, right? I you can't like, I'm going to go get a drone. We're going to go spray some fields. well, I should have done my research, right? It's going to take some time to figure this all out and take some hours of studying. You got to pass some tests and yeah.

Dwane Miller (19:43)
One of the questions I typically get is. In addition to that commercial pesticide certification from the Department of Ag David, do you know? Do you guys need to get? Aerial applicator credits as well with that.

David Stoltzfus (20:00)
Yes, we do. Okay. Yeah, I think it's 10 credits we need for that.

Dwane Miller (20:06)
Yeah, so typically that's one where we get a lot of interest about it and then they start talking about some of the requirements and certifications that you need to do and the tests you need to take and some of that interest might start to tail off a little bit, right? it is, like you said, it isn't an easy task that's going to happen overnight. Somebody needs to do their homework if they're going to plan to try to

either purchase a drone or have some services provided by them.

Ephraim Riehl (20:36)
Yeah, definitely.

Dwane Miller (20:38)
So when you guys go out to do a spray job or any kind of a job that you're looking to do from your company, talk us through, if a farmer calls you about what they're interested in, talk us through how you get from start to finish in that job.

Ephraim Riehl (20:53)
You do, mean, Eve, right? Yeah, that's right. So yeah, it'll start with a phone conversation. Oftentimes, if they can, I'll ask them to provide maps. And most farmers have some sort of maps for their records. They'll kind of e-mail me over the fields, what they have in mind. We have a price sheet structure that's, we charge everything on like a per acre basis, because the farmer wants to know his bottom line for that acre, right? Every cost that he's going to incentivize in there. So we just have a simple, you know,

Speaker 5 (21:06)
Nom

Ephraim Riehl (21:22)
It depends on where you're at on the map is really going to dictate and how many acres you have will dictate your price. That's how we've done it. And we've had good results with that. And so then oftentimes the farm will either have the product themselves or we work with a local company here in New Holland called Five Points Ag. They've actually given us like we've kind of subcontracted a good bit of work through them this year, which is great because they have, I mean, they're big.

They have a bunch of ground rigs themselves, fertilizer trailers and everything, but they got the chemicals, right? So at this point we're like, we want to get as good as we can at the application side of things. We don't have the agronomists. We don't have the depth to figure out what you need to spray, when you need to spray it. So it's super handy, right? Working with someone like Five Points, they've got guys, you know, going out, throwing soil samples, figuring out what we need to spray, when we need to spray. So if I get a customer, I get a phone call.

And then if they don't have their own product, it's really simple. We'll just, create an order through Five Points. We'll pick up the product there. We'll roll into their shop. They've been very gracious with timing and we've been there pretty early. Some, you know, through the summer months we roll in there at five o'clock and, and, know, a shout out to Billy. He's always there and, know, inviting us in and Chipper ready to go loads our tank up. And then we'll, we'll head out. Once we get to the farm, first thing we do is we got to fly the drone around the perimeter.

right, to create that field, create that boundary. You know, take the drone around, obviously you don't fill it up, put in a fresh battery, and you just start dropping pins with a hotkey basically on the controller, and then you create your field. And then oftentimes, you know, it'd be a product we've already done, so there's a template already built out in the drone that, you know, once you have the field map, you hit...

You know, the template that you decide, you know, it could be one that's set up for three gallons to the acre. The spray swath width is already adjusted at, 27 feet. If we're doing herbicide, it might be 25 feet. then that dictates your height as well, height above crop. So everything's factored in there. So you, you know, push a few keys and, and you're good to go, swap a battery, fill the tank, send the drone out. And then really all you do is, you know, you're waiting for that drone to come back.

you're refueling as fast as you can, you swap a battery and you're off again. And then one thing you got to figure for, like if you're looking at maybe getting into this business, you got to take time. It's very important. We found this out, obviously, maybe the hard way a little bit with the one field we did, but you're rinsing out, like washing out your drone tanks, as well as your tanks in your trailer, very critical, right? Very critical. If you have any 2, 4-D,

you know, left in your lines from doing a pasture spray and then you go and spray a bean field, you know, as you guys probably know, those beans are toast. So, so, you know, and so figure, I guess what I'm getting at, you have to figure in time. Like if you have three or four or maybe five small jobs lined up for the day, you're like, I got plenty of time. But if it's different chemicals at each spot, you know, figure a good 45 minutes to rinse out your drones and your tanks and till you get everything cleaned up, you know, before you're off and onto that next spot.

And then it's critical if you either have to have a tank on your trailer to put the excess chemicals or maybe you'd talk to the farmer, he might have a spot in a tote that you can dump the chemicals. So all that stuff's important to kind of talk about beforehand, like maybe before you start the job, these are some questions you throw at the farmer, So that kind of gives you an insight of what that might look like.

Ryan Spelman (25:00)
Yeah, that's a really good point, especially for folks that might be getting into this that don't have as much of the agricultural experience and understand, you know, using herbicides properly, or maybe they've just never done it at a scale where they're doing so many custom jobs. That's huge, right? Knowing how to actually properly clean out everything and then knowing where to dispose of it, like that can hang you up, you know, if you don't do it properly.

Ephraim Riehl (25:24)
And always wear gloves and goggles, right? I'll say that again, but like it's important, you're like your safety wear. don't want to get any of this. Some of these chemicals are fairly harsh. I'm sure you guys know. Even smelling them for too long, you might get a little woozy, right? So definitely wear proper eye protection and gloves. So that's critical.

Ryan Spelman (25:44)
There you go. So I know some folks who are probably listening who come to some of our pesticide education programming that we do across the state. So now you hear it not only from us, okay. You hear later PPE from some actual operators out there. So could you guys maybe share, ⁓ you talked about ⁓ setting your pins, right? So that you understand the field layout and then you kind of.

It seems to me that it's almost like an auto steering system where it knows how to make the passes properly with the swath width. Do you guys have any other advice on the operation side where you're like looking at a field and things maybe to avoid like what you do around power lines, maybe some accidents that have happened that you guys have learned from and someone else might be able to use your advice and avoid some of those. So anything like that.

Ephraim Riehl (26:37)
Yeah, David, you could share about the pivot where everything was going super smoothly and then now we're going out and we're creating a non-application area, right? Yeah. Same way with Powerlines.

David Stoltzfus (26:46)
Yeah, so what happened

was there was a pivot in the field and I had it set up to where it would just continue its flight. would just glide up and over and then back down. And this worked all the way up until the very end of the pivot where it was holding that last part of it up. Like it had two cables going out the side that were higher than the rest of the cables. And the drone, it started going up and then it stopped.

And then like when I hit resume, it usually backs up to where it first stopped, cause it like bides a little bit. And then it started going up again and it missed it. So, you know, it's just something to keep in mind. Like now we always just, we would just create a non-application area on the, by the pivot and like power lines that are, you know, some of the big like, power lines we can fly underneath. but the smaller power lines will just, we'll create a non-application area.

And then you always have to watch if you're flying under power lines. if your battery is, sorry, if your spray tank gets empty, you know, the journal, if you have it set, the journal go up to a certain height before it starts to come in back to where it took off. So you really have to watch it. It doesn't run out of liquid under the power lines. Also, it'll just, you know, it'll go up and then hover. And if you're not watching it, what? Yeah. Accidents can happen like that. Just stuff to look out for.

Ephraim Riehl (28:04)
And David, that's pretty easy to go in. Could you share a little bit how you go in and create a non-application area?

David Stoltzfus (28:11)
Yeah, it's really easy. So when we're flying around doing the mapping, it gives you an option to drop a boundary point, which is that's what we drop when we are making the map. Then it gives you the option of doing an obstacle point, which is a, it creates a line that it'll, it won't spray, it won't fly in that area where there's obstacle points. And then it also does non-application points where you can drop those and then it'll just fly right over that area, but it won't spray over that area.

Ephraim Riehl (28:37)
Yeah, so that's some neat features like inside the right. Yes, like that's what we would use is the obstacle points. So if we have like a big, you know, even even a small like two acre field where there's like a couple of trees in there, we'll fly the boundary and then save it. And then you can edit it. You can go in, press edit and then hit obstacle point. And then you like fly around the trees and save it. And then it automatically won't go into there.

That way, you know, ensures that the drum won't fly into the trees or whatever.

Speaker 5 (29:10)
So.

Dwane Miller (29:10)
So do you guys need, does somebody need to be in visual sight of that drone at all times? I'm thinking about, again, topography that we've got here in Pennsylvania, and you might have a field that goes up over the hill and still continues. How do you handle something like that?

Ephraim Riehl (29:28)
Yeah, so maintaining line of sight, like it is like we are required to do that. And so with our trailer that we have, basically have a flight deck on top of the base. So we're up at, I don't know, roughly 10 feet probably, which is super helpful, especially like you mentioned with our rolling topography. But we are forced to relocate on multiple, like if there's a very large field, we might have to set up two or three times. It just depends.

Because another thing, keep in mind, if your drone goes down in a dip or whatever, it gets too far away and you can't see it, like you start to lose signal pretty quickly. And supposedly the drone will just keep going its thing and you don't have to worry about it. But it's still something to keep in mind, like things can go wrong, think. They're more prone to go wrong when the drone loses signal. yeah, maintaining that line of sight is critical.

you whether you have to move around the time or two to get that field done, it's probably worth moving around, right? You know, just to keep everything free and clear.

Ryan Spelman (30:27)
Yeah, so maybe, so we talked about the, you have to maintain a line of sight when, especially because it sounds like one of the more labor intensive processing is, processes is the spraying. So we've been talking a lot about that. What does your crew look like on site? Like how many people do you need for that operation?

Ephraim Riehl (30:46)
Two guys typically, we don't have more than two guys. could do it with one guy, I would assume you'd burn up quick, right? Because it is monotonous and you can fly two drones with just one person. But we typically run two guys on the crew. I know guys do it with three or four, but that's worked out really well for us. You can have...

You can each have your own drone and each get your own batteries or you kind of, we kind of stagger the drones. So the one drones out there, right? So you have two guys on deck. As soon as the drone lands, one guy is pulling out the battery. The other guy is filling up the spray tank and then you're off and then you're, you know, both back to your controllers or you could maybe have, we don't often do this. You could maybe have one guy flying, you know, both the drones and then just one guy kind of designated to swap batteries and fill up. But we typically do it the way I explained first. Yeah.

That works out really well with two people.

Dwane Miller (31:40)
So you'll typically have two of the same drone out there, ready to go, alternating back and forth. Is that what I'm understanding?

Ephraim Riehl (31:49)
Yeah, and so we didn't really get into that we run DJI drones I don't know if we mentioned that before we run the agris t50 the DJI drones Obviously, that's what we use so now sound a little bias and say it's the best drone that you know The best ag drone out there, but you know, you talk to some other guys. I think there's ⁓ there's there's some good competition But that's what we would recommend using the DJI. They've been around the longest I think they probably the most advanced in a lot of their future in their futures. So

Yeah, I don't know. Whenever you have a company that's doing as well as they are, they have reliable sources. It was a time, I mean, even just the last maybe two months ago, where parts were kind of limited. It was kind of hard to get our hands on certain parts. And some of that might have been due to tariffs. Some of it was just a political scheme. Maybe I don't know exactly what it was, but parts are coming back in again. And so we've

We really like the T-50. We would recommend anybody to try the T-50 or a smaller drone if you would like. This drone capacity is what? Is that a 10 and a half gallon tank? And there's roughly 110 pounds, 115 pounds for the dry hopper for your seed, right? For your granular. I think it's right around there. And your flight time is often seven, eight minutes, I would say. Give or take. Yeah, give or take.

David Stoltzfus (32:58)
Yeah

Yeah, we're

Yeah, I mean like you're spraying two and half gallons the acre you can usually empty tank in what?

Ephraim Riehl (33:22)
minutes

man yeah that's true three three minutes comes back it's yeah

Speaker 5 (33:24)
But then to it.

David Stoltzfus (33:27)
It depends on if you have a nice long field or if the drone is just going, it's going a little bit, turning around, just like little short passes. It takes longer to empty the tank.

Ephraim Riehl (33:38)
you brought up a point. We are like a licensed dealer now, so we can sell you drones. We can help you out with any questions you might have, even probably some training as far as that goes, like drone parts. We plan on like stocking up a good bit over the winter months here and being ready for the busy season next year. Like we don't have a whole lot of inventory right now, but we do plan on getting a bunch in and being able to.

you know, hopefully become a full service, you know, even parts at some point, because there's, there seems to be a pretty high demand for, you know, guys, you know, drone techs, people to be able to fix stuff. You have a drone goes down, right? Say you got a job, you have two or 300 acres to do that day. You might have two drones and everything's going fine. And then, well, you might flip a branch or a power line, like we've talked about earlier. And then that drones down. Well,

your week's probably full and that's going to set you back at least a day, right? So you figure out where you need to go for a part. So anymore, we keep like an extra set of props and a few new motors pretty much on the truck. I know guys that they'll just keep an entirely new or maybe used but another drone in the truck or the trailer and then they can just swap out and keep right on going because we've had to happen where

We have a drone down and we got to run three or four hours and then it's a day or two until it's fixed and back. So being able to get your drone up and running again as fast as possible, it is important to kind of have a game plan there.

Ryan Spelman (35:05)
So it sounds like are these drones pretty serviceable on your own? know, it's, you know, kind of when we talk about tractors, right, there's a lot of computer technology that doesn't allow you to work on certain things and you need a rep, but working with a company like DJI, I'm curious, do they necessarily have that level of support where you will have to get pretty sufficient at fixing it yourself? And how difficult is that to do?

David Stoltzfus (35:30)
Yeah, so I mean, I think it's great if you do get a drone to get to know your way around the drone. But for the most part, the drones are very plug and play. Like if you need a new part, most times you can take a couple of screws out and unplug it and replace it. But yeah, definitely, it's going to help you a lot to just know your way around the drone. Know how it works, know kind of what does what.

Um, but yeah, like basically it's, you know, it has two power management boards, one in the front and one in the back and then everything plugs into there. yeah, I mean, from, from my personal experience, I was surprised that there wasn't more technology, technology involved with, like it wasn't more techie than what it is. So.

Speaker 5 (36:09)
you

Dwane Miller (36:22)
So you guys mentioned that the drone that you might use has a certain liquid capacity. Does that same drone have that dry hopper? You guys have different drones for spraying versus cover crop seeding.

Ephraim Riehl (36:37)
No, it's the same drone, just a different hopper, but a dry tank and a liquid tank. And there again, it's very simple to swap that out. It's literally, well, if it's the spray, it's two hoses to disconnect and then unplug the electric hookup there. And then the same way for the, it's just a little simpler, I guess, if you're just on the dry, it's just one plug-in and you're good to go. You just got to take the battery out to remove the tank.

And it's a piece of cake, really. So it's just one drone. You know, can do with the dryer, the liquid, just having one drone. Yeah. And yesterday, actually, we did that. We started with a spray job in the morning. So the guy had some burnt cucumbers, some pickle spray right on his corn and his beans. We did that. And then we had a guy that had like 20 acres, I believe, of cover cropping. And he had this crimson clover.

You know, out goes the liquid tank, in goes the dry, and we finish there. And then we went up to schoolkill and sprayed some more trees, so back to the liquid tank. So, you know, you're back and forth maybe a few times a day. That was our day yesterday, so that was pretty cool.

Dwane Miller (37:45)
Is

it, are drones like any other technology or they, how quickly do they become obsolete? Right, is it?

Ephraim Riehl (37:55)
That's a good

question. I don't know, like these drones, I guess what excites me with these drones is from where they came from like five years ago, the difference from the T40 to the T50, and now they're talking about the T100 that's gonna be here by the end of the year or beginning of next. I think by the end of the year. Yeah. I think so. You take a 10 gallon spray tank to like, now it's a 24 or a 26.

So the technology, it's only getting bigger and better, right? More advanced. So I don't know. Does that answer your question a little bit? Like I feel like they're here to stay. I don't know if DJI, like there's still some reports on the DJI drone band, whatever. I don't know if you guys have heard about it, how much you are in the drone space, but it's been the talk of the town for probably over a year already. Cause I know they were talking about it last year.

when we got into it, even prior to us getting into it, were like, know, DJI is going away. They're not going to use the Ag drones. Well, the new ones are still coming in and they're only getting bigger and better. And you're just going to be able to cover that much more acreage, get more efficient. I'm guessing the obstacle avoidance is going to get that much better. I hope so because the price tag got that much higher. So I hope it'd be a lot better, right? Does that kind of answer your question, Dwayne? Yes.

Dwane Miller (39:14)
It does and you're right, nothing's getting cheaper nowadays. And you mentioned obstacle avoidance, that dovetail into the next kind of topic that I'd like to cover. If you have an accident, what do you do? If you end up, you mentioned clipping your wing, but if you actually crash the drone in a full-fledged crash, what do you do?

⁓ and talk us through that process. Have you had that happen before?

Ephraim Riehl (39:44)
We have, yeah, so earlier this spring, it was unfortunate, but we did, we had a drone fall probably 20 feet kind of onto the asphalt. just kind of dropped out of the air, clipped the power line, right? And so that was beyond our capacity to repair it. So it went directly to ⁓ Accurate Ag, which they're in Virginia, and Brandon Bunn, he runs Accurate Ag down there. And they have their like in-house repair guys and they got...

any part you could dream of for the drone. So I think it was probably three or four, like that was probably the most lengthy of the drone repairs. It was in a couple of days, they had like new landing gear. I think one or two of the arms were gone. Like very expensive, but like that drone today is still running. Like it's you replace parts and they want to fly again. I mean, it seems that way, right?

David Stoltzfus (40:20)
his was coming.

Ephraim Riehl (40:34)
And it's like, they're almost, what do got to do so it won't run? We had another one drop from hitting a power line, right? That one didn't fall that far, but there's three feet probably. Okay. So it was that far. was at least the one. Okay. I was just telling him about that one a little bit. The one that hit the asphalt. Matthew said it was closer to 30 feet than 20. So you can imagine a drone drops out of the air 30 feet with a battery in it. That's a lot of weight.

Speaker 5 (40:44)
feet. Was it there?

Ephraim Riehl (41:01)
you know, for that thing to be up and going again in a few days is impressive, but that would be on our repair. know, from I think replacing some motors, the props.

David Stoltzfus (41:10)
Probably all the props that might have been... I don't know if he did any motors or not, I'm guessing. Definitely some arms, landing gear.

Ephraim Riehl (41:18)
We looked at it and we were like, is this drone gonna fly again? So, and that's another thing. You wanna have insurance for these drones, like which we have, but I think anybody that's gonna make that kind of investment, you know, will get insurance for their drone. But I don't know. I think that fixed probably cost us around $7,000, roughly. Matthew, do you guys recall the six or seven grand? To get that fixed?

David Stoltzfus (41:45)
I know there was a lot, like was some stuff that was on a warranty, but...

Ephraim Riehl (41:49)
There was a warranty cover for that one. Yeah. Yeah. right around there. Yeah. So yeah, it gets kind of costly. obviously keep your drone in the air, stay away from power lines and trees and you will be good to go. It's that simple.

David Stoltzfus (41:52)
Yeah, I think I'm going to leave. I can't remember what.

Speaker 5 (41:56)
Like 6300.

Dwane Miller (42:07)
Sounds easy, ⁓

Ephraim Riehl (42:09)
But, they'll

be forward.

Ryan Spelman (42:12)
Well, so here's another example that I was just talking to someone yesterday who operates a drone and they talked about having a solar flare that actually that did something where it messed with the drone system and it just kind of fell out of the air. And that was something that they were like, we have no idea what happened here.

and they learned after the fact that it was from some sort of solar flare. And I can't remember if it was that it fell or it just landed in the middle of the field and wouldn't fly again. But I think it sounds like in this space accidents happen. Plan for them to happen. Know what your plan is if you do have to have a major repair and then get insurance in case of it.

Ephraim Riehl (42:57)
Yeah, exactly. That's very important. Having a plan in place before something happens, figure out what your mood's going to be will definitely save you a lot of time, 100%. I couldn't agree more with that,

Ryan Spelman (43:08)
So you mentioned saving a lot of time. So I think one of the last things we'll talk about here when it comes to the equipment itself is the trailer. It sounds like as much as the drone that you're using matters, the actual trailer and your setup there is almost just as important, if not more important. So maybe you guys could talk about in your experience, like what makes a good trailer setup? And I know you guys are designing a new one.

What are some of the features that you think will improve the operation?

Ephraim Riehl (43:39)
So the trailer that we have now, it does work well, like as far as getting the drones up in the air. And we bought that from a company out in Ohio. And the one thing that we find here in Pennsylvania was, you guys know, a lot of back roads, a lot of low hanging branches. So our drones sit on the trailer that we have up on the top deck. And so they're exposed to the elements, but also to tree, you know, tree branches. I think we actually, did we knock one off once going in the driveway?

where a drone actually fell off. Broke a prop. Broke a prop, right? You know, from going in a driveway. we were like, how can we make, how can we have this amount of height? Because we love being up there 10 feet, right? To maintain that line of sight. You're parked in a cornfield and you can see right out over the corn. It's amazing. How can we have that, but have an enclosed trailer going down the road? So we worked with a local company here in New Holland and we kind of come up with a design where

this trailer, when it's enclosed, how could I, it kind of resembles almost like a Viber truck or like a snowmobile trailer. I guess a snowmobile trailer kind of were it. And so then it'll have electric actuators where you flip a switch and what was your trailer roof is now your landing pad, right? So, so this trailer is going to extend straight up and then you'll have your tanks underneath it. And the drones will be in the center.

your trailer roof access your landing pad, everything comes up with the flip of a switch and comes up at stops at the right height. Your actuators kind of work as a safety mechanism because unless they're engaged, they're not coming down. Like we built our first one, we actually have one here. It was, I mean, trial and error, we built it from scratch. It has some nice features, but there's a lot we're improving with it. One of those is going from hydraulics to put it up and down to the electric actuator, which the hydraulic line could always bust or...

You know, you have that risk. But the actuator will actually work is, you know, unless you engage it, it'll go up against hit a sensor. It'll stop when it's level and then it's not coming back down until you flip that switch. So hopefully you guys can kind of get the picture of, you know, picture of snowmobile trailer flipping a switch. The roof goes up, everything goes up. And then what was your roof on the left and the right side fold out? That's now your landing. That's now your landing spot for the drones.

You pull the drone out of the center, which is still under roof. So going down the road, they're completely hidden from the elements. You know, instead of our bar on top of our trailer now that like 13, two, we have to avoid some bridges. We're going to be riding at like 10, seven or 10, 10 right around there. So, you know, a good bit lower and we actually lose time. I'll be honest. We lose time on back roads because it's middle of the road with your four ways on trying to avoid, you know, these low hanging tree branches.

where sometimes it's like, maybe we just throw our drones down on the first deck till we get to the next spot. So similar setup to what we have now, but that's one of the neat features. Another one, it's built out of everything aluminum, aluminum frame, aluminum side panels. So it's going to be fairly lightweight. We don't have like all the specs out yet. It's not finished. It's still in the building process of it right now. What are some of the other...

⁓ yeah. instead of right now we have two of the DJI 10,000, the 10,000 generator, the 12,000 on our trailer, right? You know, you guys know as well as I do how loud a gas generator is. Well, we got two of them side by side, so it's deafening, right? So we bought a Kubota diesel generator from a company in Florida. And so that's what's going to power the battery charging station. It'll power all the lights. It'll make the trailer go up and down.

pretty much that's where the entire power source is coming from, from that one big, is it a 30,000 or 28,000 David? 30,000. I think it's a 30,000 kilowatt. Yeah. Generator. So it's a big generator and it's an investment. Like this trailer, I don't have exact pricing yet, but like the, it's not going to be a cheap trailer. I feel like we're building it well and it's going to come to the market at a good time. Like I think this winter.

It should be up by this winter, maybe beginning of next year, you know, at the latest, but we're hoping to have that trailer for ourself. And then we're hoping to sell to the, you know, to other custom applicators or farmers. If anybody else is looking to get into it, we want to, you know, try to add some value there with the trailer side of it. So that's pretty exciting project. I mean, we started that, it's been over a year ago now. We built the one trailer, you know, there was some hiccups, like I mentioned. So now we're trying to perfect everything.

and then go public with it and see what happens.

Dwane Miller (48:25)
That's interesting. I wasn't really thinking about the need for power and all that power to keep those batteries up and charged. One question I had about the trailer was how big of a freshwater tank do you guys carry? You mentioned, OK, the drone itself has 10 and 1 gallon tank. How much water are you guys taking on the job?

Ephraim Riehl (48:52)
So we have a thousand gallon fresh water tank. I would say, I don't know, five times out of seven or five times out of 10, it's not full. Like majority of the time it's not full. We have then 175 gallon like inductor tank where you can, you know, pull water from the big fresh water tank and then mix your batch in the 175 and pull it out of there. Or on some bigger jobs we have put everything.

like fungicide jobs, have put everything into the thousand gallon tank so you can go out and do two or 300 acres without coming back and throwing another batch. So it's nice to have that big tank. It does add a lot of weight, obviously, but having that big tank is definitely something I would recommend. I probably wouldn't go smaller. Like if I'm running two drones, I don't think you want any less than an 800 gallon tank.

would be my advice. if you want, know there's guys like rigging up their own trailers too, but you can get into it for a lot cheaper than, you know, we've invested a good bit of capital into designing and trying to build out these trailers. But you know, know of guys, I have a friend down in Kentucky, he's just going to weld something together and, know, throw a couple of tanks on and, you know, make it happen and go for it. Why not? By all means, but definitely I'd say seven to 800 gallons. You don't want any less, know, tank size than that.

Does that make sense?

Dwane Miller (50:12)
You ever get to a job site where they're saying, we're going to fill with water at our job site versus your water that you have at your place? Any parameters that anybody was ever skeptical about using your water versus the water that they have at their farm, for instance?

Speaker 5 (50:36)
Thanks.

Ephraim Riehl (50:37)
Not

really. mean, think the most important water is water for the most part. Like it's, it's nice if, if we have the water of what we need before we get out to the job site. but if we're traveling far, I'll check with the farmer and make sure he has a water source on site where we can fill up. Because if you're driving three hours, you know, it's nice not to have that thousand gallon tank full, right?

⁓ But no, it can work either way. Just figure in for more time if you're gonna get out there and now you gotta fill the tank, now you gotta mix your batch and it's an hour and a half later till your map and spraying. So figure in that extra time if you're going out on site and mixing it with the farmer versus if you're getting it from a chemical plant or somewhere that's premixed or you premix it at the shop maybe that morning before you head out. So some things to consider.

Ryan Spelman (51:24)
So this is probably a good segue to get into some of the nitty gritty of spraying and then cover crop seeding. so with spraying, what are your guys' thoughts on adequate coverage? like we talk a lot about swath width when we're talking about a ground rig and oftentimes the...

It's pretty easy to know exactly where that's going, right? I'd imagine there's a lot more variables going on with a drone. So do you guys usually overlap your swath? How do you decide, you know, how wide it's going to be and then like how you're actually mapping it to make sure you get even coverage?

Ephraim Riehl (52:03)
Well, your wind is probably the biggest factor there. And depending on what we're spraying, we like no wind, obviously, right? But oftentimes there's a little breeze. So your wind speed, it kind of dictates our height above crops and then also our swath width. And that stuff that, yeah, I would say most times we try to overlap a little bit, like especially with cover crop. Now, depending on what the chemical is, you might not want to overlap a whole lot.

And it's trial and error. Like we did a bunch of testing. Like I recommend anybody that's going to get into it. Yeah, you can learn from other people, but put some test strips out there, right? Put in some different products and look at what your coverage is at 10 feet, you know, at 12 feet when you set your spray swath to 24 or 30 feet, like, are you actually getting that or not? So trial and error. And like we did some testing with seed and products where we had test strips. So that, helped us a lot, I would say.

The wind is still your biggest indicator and we'll get to a job. And sometimes like we've done some fungicide already where it's pretty breezy. The farmers like put it on and so we'll do it, but it takes a lot longer because we're bringing our drone down to like, we did it like what this year, like six or seven feet above the crops. So you're not getting much of a spray swap at that point. So you just, you know, you make some quick adjustments and then you just, it just takes a lot longer if it's windier, but for the most part we get about.

26, 27 feet probably on average with our spray swath with our with the T50 drones.

Ryan Spelman (53:32)
Awesome. Yeah. So, so it sounds like, you know, your conditions matter a lot, obviously with wind and that's going to kind of gauge where you're going and test for yourself. And I know one of our specialists, Paul Esker has been doing some work with looking at how spray coverage works. And he has these, I think they call them a wettable papers. They're like these yellow cards that show a spray pattern. So I know like for our audience, if you want to test this,

there are some great ways that you can actually see where your drone is spraying and how to best overlap in that case. So with sprays as well, I know you guys mentioned that you're more with fungicides and then now you're venturing kind of into herbicides. And I imagine part of this is because fungicides already, like they're kind of a great use for a drone because they have a lower carrier volume, like by nature.

And there are time periods, like if you're going over corn, you need to apply fungicide after tassel. So it's great to be up and above. anyways, can you talk a little bit about like, you know, using fungicides versus herbicides and how you select the rate that you're using and maybe you are working with agronomist, so you might not have all the answers, but how do you guys think about this?

Ephraim Riehl (54:48)
Well, we are, we are working with agronomists, like you said there a little bit. And we have done some, some trial and error with like setting for different products. Like we're on a pasture spray where we're using two, four D into Canva. we'll typically spread it at three gallons to the acre between three and four gallons. Most times it's three. And then when we're spraying herbicide, we'll, we'll usually slow the drone down a little bit. We'll slow the drone down and we'll.

We make that swath width a little less as well, right David? That way you just, you get a better coverage, right? Like we, we done some jobs earlier this year where we did some burn downs and then we seen some of the results where you have, everything looks good. And then here's a thin strip, right? That you missed. And then over here's another thin strip of green. It's like, happened there? So what happened was we were probably just a little too high above the crop or above the field. We didn't have quite our settings fine tuned. Okay.

And like you mentioned, the spraying the fungicide, the two and a half to three gallon rate there, like they, mean, know crop dusters are doing it around three gallons, some might at two and a half. We sprayed ours at two and a half this year. And I know talking with Tyler from Penn State as well, I think he said they've done some testing at two and a half gallons to the acre and have gotten great results. Now I talked to guys this year, we had obviously a lot of moisture right this spring, early summer.

And I talked to guys that applied with the ground rig and with the drone. Some areas, the fungicide worked great. Some areas in both cases, whether drone or ground rig, they still got tar spot. Whether it was the timing might've been off a little bit. Was it the moisture? They're not exactly sure. But I guess what I'm saying is we've seen pretty good comparison with how well.

Our rate works at two and half gallons to the acre with fungicide. Like it works really well. Be like, wow, you can't be spraying that. You know, that's you need more. You need at least three gallons. Wow. It works, you know, and it's proven itself. So does that kind of answer your question? I mean, there's, there's also maybe some other products, but for us, it's slowing the drone down, figuring out your height above, you know, for your pastures, you're trying to kill weeds. You just fine tune things a little bit. It makes a world of a difference in your end result.

Ryan Spelman (57:07)
Yeah, no, I think that was perfect because that's exactly one of always the questions about herbicides is usually we think of them being larger carrier volumes and coverage is a little bit more important than your fungicide just because of the nature of how they work. hearing from your perspective that there are methods that you can use to increase efficacy, slowing it down and focusing on coverage. think that's some great advice there.

All right, so we're kind of, I'd say we probably have like 10 more minutes before we have to close here. So I'd like to cover quickly, talk a little bit about cover cropping and then we can close out. you guys mentioned, I think earlier you mentioned you're doing some rye seeding. I'm curious what you're seeing folks are interested in seeding with a cover crop and you're doing this into a standing soybean or corn.

Is it mostly rye and wheat or are you doing mixtures with clovers and radish and stuff like that?

Ephraim Riehl (58:02)
Well, we are doing mixtures, but it somewhat depends on your area. So I know there's like programs in Maryland and Virginia as well, where they have an incentive to, to put it in certain crops. Like Maryland used to be, they'd pay for corn and beans. think just this year, they took it away that they're not going to compensate the farmer to put it in his beans. They will for his corn. And then some states, you know, it even has to match. Like it has to be raw. It has to be at X amount per acre.

or it has to be a brassica clover mix, you know, cause it varies. Like the one, just for an example, the one customer in Maryland, we're spreading what is state approved for him to put down, which is a rye brassica clover mix, I believe if I'm not mistaken. And that's a 20 pounds to the acre. And then for the guy in Virginia, he's doing like a hundred pounds to the acre. 112 pounds to the acre. So your state might kind of incentivize on what

you need to plant and what your pounds to the acre is. And then of course, your timing is, I mean, I would say critical because you want to get it in before the leaves fall off, but you don't want to get it in too early where it might be really germinating when you come in there to harvest. I probably haven't seen that a whole lot. And then moisture, obviously moisture is your biggest factor on whether or not that's going to take off, right? Like last year, I talked to a guy that

He did some cover cropping with a drone and he also drilled some stuff in. Well, as you guys recall, last fall it was bone dry, or in our part of the state anyway, even the summer, was dry last year. So, you know, he did a side-by-side comparison with the drone versus the ground rig of drilling it in, a no-till drill, and the no-till did germinate a little bit, not great coverage, but the drone, it didn't come up at all, but there was no moisture, so you need moisture.

Obviously you're going to need a good rain or two for that to germinate. Once it's up and running, you should be good to go.

Dwane Miller (59:54)
So some tips for seeding success, right? Understand the species that you're dealing with. Make sure we've got the correct rate. We need to have it at the correct timing. You mentioned that that is as critical and then moisture. So from my standpoint, where we are in our neck of the woods this year, I think we're progressed ahead of where we normally would with something like

Ephraim Riehl (1:00:12)
We are.

Dwane Miller (1:00:22)
leaf drop in soybeans and we were extremely dry. has that made cover cropping for you guys this fall so far more challenging than any other another year than what you would what you'd normally experience you think or not?

Ephraim Riehl (1:00:38)
Not necessarily. And we're still like growing that customer base. our jobs are, you know, they're coming in a week or two ahead right now. And it's weather dependent. You I got a call from a guy. I talked to a guy last week. He wants to put cover crop in, but if we don't get these next couple of rains, he's not going to do it. A lot of it's last minute. You know, we want to do a job tomorrow with a guy called last week. So I don't know if that's really been a huge challenge for us.

Cause we're not like super booked out as far as timeframe. So as far as the beans dropping earlier, the leaves dropping earlier this year, last year, can't really say that it's affected us at all. No, it just kind of, I think the biggest thing is for a lot of these guys is the state, do they have a state program where they're getting funded for some of the application and then as well as, you know, covering the seed costs.

At that point for them, it's a no brainer because obviously you're helping with soil erosion. You might get a little bit of that nitrogen back into the soil. So all that's helpful going into your next year planting. So having those incentives, having those programs, I think are great for farmers. And then it gives us work. They want to put it in and we're a good solution for them to put it in before they come in and harvest their crops. They can harvest their crops and they're done. They don't have to go back out. it's fall is a busy time.

for all these farmers. There's a lot of custom farmers in our area. So they're putting in long nights and, you

Ryan Spelman (1:02:03)
And I think in some of these programs I'm aware of also have a time aspect to it, right? Like there is a certain date that they need to have the cover crop in the soil and growing. So that's where this also comes in.

Ephraim Riehl (1:02:15)
Correct, 100%. And most of these people, they have to provide the state or wherever it is that they're checking in with maps showing that this was done. So we're submitting few maps of what the drone did, the routes that it took and everything, sending them back. And then they'll send them over to the, I think it's probably the state or whatever, just so they know, okay, yep, they did get this planted and then they'll do the payout to the farmer, right?

Ryan Spelman (1:02:44)
Cool, so one last question about cover cropping here. when you select, have you experimented at all with seeding rates and do you find that like increasing the seeding rate helps with germination or is it really just about timing and moisture? And if you do that, you can keep like a similar rate to what you would drill or maybe broadcast.

Ephraim Riehl (1:03:06)
Now, for your broadcast rates are still going to be typically a little bit higher than your drill rates, I think across the board. And yeah, does it factor if you might add five or 10 pounds to the acre and you have adequate moisture, you're going to have a little bit higher germination rate. Yeah. I would say go with what your agronomists are recommending in that area or what your guys are recommending in that area because it varies. Your soil varies. Like Dwayne, you mentioned up in your area, you got that chilly.

soil kind of where you hardly hold moisture. So there might be a different seed than what they want to put in down here in the southern end of the state. I don't know. So it's important knowing your seed. And then I would say rain is still your biggest factor. Obviously, I mean, that's kind of a no brainer, right? You need the moisture if you're going to throw and grow. You do. So.

Ryan Spelman (1:03:52)
Yeah, I like that. Need the moisture if you're going to throw and grow. That's a great way to say it because oftentimes, you know, when you think about what's happening when you're putting the seed on top of the ground is one of the things that we need for germination is good seed to soil contact and moisture around that seed. So we're limiting the seed to soil contact. So that means by the time it germinates, it needs the right moisture right at that time of germination to really establish itself fast. So if you don't have that

you might end up with problems. here's my last question to close out this episode here, and it's what excites you guys most about drones in the future of Ag?

Ephraim Riehl (1:04:31)
Probably a little bit what I touched on earlier is what's exciting is how big these drones are getting. Like I mentioned the drone that's going to come to the States here within the next couple of months, probably like we're doubling the tank size, right? We're doubling the payload. So the speed is going from like 22 miles per hour to 44 miles per hour. Like these things are going to rip, right? So that's really exciting to see these things get bigger and better and more advanced.

I think drones are here and they're here to stay. they're, they're, I don't know if they're the talk of the town, but every farmer has either probably considered having somebody, you know, do a test plot on his farm or has talked to somebody that has done a test plot. So there's still a lot of people talking about it. And I think, you know, within the next couple of years, there's going to be more and more people that adapt to, yeah, why not? A drone is a good idea, right? Some of the pros we talked about earlier.

And there's going to be more and more custom applicators. So there's going to be a demand for selling drones, to be able to service a drone. If you can come in with some good business ideas, come into this space even now yet, I think you'll do just fine. This is that kind of answer, a little bit of what you talked about there.

Dwane Miller (1:05:40)
Yep, do you have any any words for advice for a farmer that's thinking about this in his mind? Alright, been been seeing these drones been hearing people talk about him. If somebody is interested in getting getting involved first steps. Any words of advice for them?

Ephraim Riehl (1:05:59)
Well, first steps, if you're in our area, us, definitely. We'll talk it through with you. We'll talk through the pros and cons. We'll talk about would it be worth it for the amount of acreage that he farms to have his own set up versus hiring somebody else to do it. We'll talk about those things. We can talk through the licensing with him if he wants to do a trailer, the whole nine yards. So we can either outfit you or we'd be willing just to have that conversation and whether or not

it's gonna be beneficial for that farmer to make that purchase for himself or hire it out, right? If that makes sense.

Dwane Miller (1:06:33)
Yep, so if somebody is looking in to get in contact with you guys at RealWayAg, Ephraim, what's the best way to do that?

Ephraim Riehl (1:06:40)
So right now, phone number. My phone number is 717-875-0187. And then you can follow us on Instagram at realwayag. I think that's R-I-E-H-L-W-A-Y underscore ag. You can follow us on there. We don't post a whole lot of content, but we are hoping to kind of upscale the social media side of things because drone content is pretty neat.

It's fun to watch. It's kind of the hype right now. So hopefully post some more on there. But that's where you can find us. Email address as well is realway.efrom at gmail.com. So that's realway.efrom at gmail.com. So that's the best place to find us. Give us a call. Reach out by email. We'd love to chat with you about any questions related to these ag drones.

or the thermal drones. Matt would be happy to talk with you about those as well.

Ryan Spelman (1:07:39)
Awesome, yeah, and we'll make sure that we put all that contact information in our show notes too for our audience. And guys, it was a huge pleasure to have you guys on. I think this was a little different than a lot of the content we usually have, but I think this has been an awesome crash course for anyone who wants to learn about having their own drone operation or is even just interested in the space. And I think it'll be helpful for some of the agronomy folks.

to hear this as well, to learn a little bit more about how folks are actually integrating this into the Ag space. So Ephraim, Matthew and David, thank you so much for coming on. It was really a pleasure.

Ephraim Riehl (1:08:19)
Yeah, it was our pleasure. Thanks for the invite. We really appreciate it.

David Stoltzfus (1:08:23)
Yeah, thanks for the speech.

Ryan Spelman (1:08:25)
Awesome, thank you guys and to our audience, thank you guys for tuning into another episode and we'll catch you on the next one of the Agronomy Highlights podcast.