Drone giant DJI Launches Crop-Spraying Drone - BBC News
- 30 November 2015
Billion-dollar drone company DJI is expanding from consumer and camera drones into the agriculture industry.
The Chinese firm's latest model is a crop-spraying drone, which it claims is "40 times more efficient" than manual spraying, despite having just 12 minutes of flight time.
It will be released in China and Korea where hand-spraying is more common.
DJI made $500m (£332m) in drone sales in 2014 and some analysts predict the firm will hit $1bn in sales this year.
The Agras MG-1 has eight rotors and can carry up to 10kg of crop-spraying fluids per flight.
The foldable device is also dustproof, water-resistant and made of anti-corrosive materials, the firm says on its website (in Chinese).
Farmers around the world have used drones for some time but generally for monitoring their crops and livestock.
Huge farms use aircraft for crop-dusting but they can be very expensive.
The Wall Street Journal reports it is expected to be priced at around $15,000 (£10,000).
DJI's current best seller, the Phantom 2 Vision+ camera drone, costs around $1100.
Source: BBC News - Drone giant DJI Launches Crop-Spraying Drone - BBC News