Herbicide approved for industrial use by drone 

The door to spraying herbicides with drones opened a crack with the Canadian approval of a herbicide by drone for industrial application.

Canada’s Pest Management Review Agency approved Garlon XRT herbicide, the first industrial vegetation product with drone application on the label.

“We are the first company to have a pesticide registered with PMRA for drone application,” said Mark Versluys, specialties business leader for Corteva Agriscience in Calgary.

“There is no other pesticide in Canada that has drone application on the label,” he said.

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Versluys said the data collection and processing of the information required for approval took many months before the company received approval from PMRA.

Now, the herbicide can be sprayed by drone under utility right-of-ways, transmission lines, oil and gas leases and on steep mountainous terrain, anywhere Garlon was already registered for use in industrial areas. The approval does not extend to drone spraying for agricultural use.

Versluys said Corteva will continue to collect data and work with PMRA to have other pesticides registered for application by drone in the future.

“This isn’t just a one and done. This is the first step in a very exciting journey,” he said.

“I think the future looks very bright.”

Markus Weber, president of Landview Drones, said while the door is open a crack, PMRA needs to do more to add drone application registration for agricultural use to existing labels. Approving one herbicide at a time will take five to 10 years before there is a large selection of chemistry available for farmers.

Weber said ideally, he would hope PMRA would approve any chemical for drones that is now approved for aircraft.

“To me that is ultimately the way that we need to do this. It can’t just be label by label,” he said at the Agriculture in Motion farm show held northwest of Saskatoon.

In the first hour of the show, more than 120 farmers showed up for a drone demonstration.

“It is incredible. Farmers see this as a tool primarily for three things: brush control, pasture fungicide application and desiccant application.”

Pest control products can’t legally be sprayed by drone, but farmers see the potential, he said.

“Now that drones can fly large acreages and spraying can be done quickly and reliably, they see the potential, but they just can’t because the label doesn’t allow them to.”