# Crop Health Assessment with Automated Drones using AgrologiQ

- Event: NestGen ’25
- Published: March 7, 2025
- Length: 36:04
- Watch: https://nestgen.org/library/watch/-JYF9RYRG88/

> The transcript of a recorded NestGen session, for reading or for use with an AI tool. It comes from the video's
> captions; automatic captions can mishear names and terms.

## Transcript

**[0:20]** and today we are exploring a game-changing topic in agriculture that is how autonomous drones are transforming crop Health assessment far farmers and agronomists have relied on manual scouting satellite imagery and ground sensors to monitor crops for years while these methods provide valuable insights they are often slow expensive and reactive rather than being proactive but what if there was a way to detect plant stress diseases and nutrient deficiencies in real time before they impact the yield but but before we begin let us first go through some housekeeping rules so feel free to drop in your questions in the Q&A box anytime and we will tackle them in the Q&A segment feel free to engage with us sharing your insights in the chat and let us know where you are joining from if you face any technical difficulties do try

**[1:20]** refreshing your screen or try rejoining the meeting so just to let you know guys the session is getting recorded So if you miss anything you can always revisit it later and yeah feel free to take it to social post your key takeaways on LinkedIn or Twitter with hash nesen and give your speakers a quick shout out we also have a booth for AGR logic which you can navigate to by going to the booth section therein you can have a one-on-one interaction with the speaker the booth visits are planned from 12:00 p.m. C to 12:30 p.m. C and then again from 2:15 p.m. C and 3:15 p.m. C so without any further Ado I would like to give a huge shout out to our NES gen 2025 sponsors who have helped us to make this event even bigger and better last but not the least let's Dive Right into this insightful session by combining Aid driven analytics multispectral Imaging and realtime monitoring

**[2:22]** automated drones powered by agogic are revolutionizing how we manage crop health and who is better to take us through this than Thomas mcjack the founder CTO and COO of agic who has been leading the charge in Precision Agriculture and drone automation so Thomas La welcome and the stage is all yours thank you very much Rohan uh let me just share my screen first on yeah so uh again thank you for for for the kind words welcome everyone uh today I'm going to talk about the crop Health assessment with automated drones using agic system for smart agriculture I'm going to tell you first a little bit about agic uh which is a smart system for agriculture that is transforming modern farming through automation data driven insights and AI power decision-making platform so uh agic uh is taking an Innovative approach to Precision farming and to

**[3:24]** Precision agriculture uh we are combining cutting gagee technology with practical solutions for farmers our system integrates autonomous drones combined drone in the box systems iot sensors Advanced analytics to provide real-time monitoring and automated decision support uh with that we are allowing Farmers to improve efficiency save resources and increase their yields uh unlike traditional Farm monitoring systems which basically only provides uh basic environmental data ay goes a step further by offering the Dual verification combining the ground saer data with aerial drone imagery uh this ensures most accurate actionable insights and eliminating any guess work so uh agic smart system uh is a turnkey fully autonomous smart system designed to revolutionize agriculture by integrating the advanced iot sensors uh

**[4:25]** combining and is equipped with smart platform for data processing and for AI decision- making and is also the integral part is drawn in the Box system so it is divided in three sections and one of those sections of course uh is automated drones uh the importance of automated drones I'll talk now about the importance of automated drones not just in our system but uh in smart agriculture in general uh which they are the key to maximizing efficiency in prec agriculture uh and uh that's where the Drone in the box systems uh changes the game so with the Automation and the automated drones uh you'll get the fully autonomous drone missions there is no need for on-site Pilots unlike the traditional drone solutions that require trained on-site Pilots uh agic system allows you to fully remote and fully automate the processes uh drones they follow the pre program flight

**[5:30]** PS based on the farm specific needs ensuring the systematic and repeatable crop Health assessment without requiring any manual oversight so this is uh this is pretty important thing because um we have a lot of clients that are basically they want to adopt the new technology and they they are not opposed to any new things and and to implement and innovate their processes processes on the farms but the problem that we occur the most is that they are afraid of the new technology because they are not sure how to how to use it so this is what we came in mind and this is with this idea a Loy was created to become the fully autonomous so the farmers can stay farmers and that they can get the only the information so they can you know do what they are the best at is making the decisions for their Farms so they don't need to you know reprogram themselves to become a pilot or or become a technicians or become

**[6:32]** an iot specialist they are staying Farmers but they're empowered with with uh fully autonomous drone missions and autonomous system that is uh being able to completely remotely controled from from from the other uh site so uh D app system integration so drawing in the Box system integration uh how does the Drone in a box system works uh it's the process starts with uh initiating the prescheduled flights the Drone autonomously takes off uh from the automated docking station following the precise route over the farm which is capturing the high resolution multispectral images along the way uh so basically this is this is the part uh that is also customized real depending on the on the farmers and the clients need because there are a lot of different clients with a lot of different Farm with the different crops and the different processes that they are working with so basically what we are are

**[7:36]** getting a lot of questions uh and a lot of inputs if we can do something like this if we can do something like that some people want you know to have an inspection early in the morning before the sun sets up some people wants to do it three or five times a day some people just want to do once in a week so basically uh this all all able we are all being able to do that with with you know the dup system because every every mission is customized uh accordingly to the client's needs and to the farm that we are catering uh so uh after they follow the route they collect the data sometimes this is not just the multispectral Imaging data they also ask us a lot of times you know to can you uh take the pictures of the crops can you sometimes they even they even ask us for the visual inspection of the property because sometimes the prop gets damaged or they just want you know assess if if if something could be done so with with u highly reliable system the DI system that we are using and and and the

**[8:42]** softwares we are using you know these missions can be done you know uh repeatedly scheduled daily weekly monthly but they also can be you know addressed if something occurs we can we can throw in the the specialized Mission uh or even control it manually remotely so with that being said uh uh I will move on to data collection and processing so the data and the multispectral images there after the the flight they're being automatically uploaded uh where they are immediately analyzed using the third party softwares that are translating the data collected into the real-time insights so unlike manual inspections which can last several days to get the analyze drones uh can scan hundreds of hectors in a single flight they can can identify the stress factors nutrient deficiencies or potential disease outbreaks before they're even visible to the naked eye uh much more efficient than than the manual uh manually when you're going out to the field so there are Al there is also

**[9:45]** possibility of course with drone in a box system that we can have the continuous monitoring like 247 uh fight time with drone just coming back to for the swapping of the batteries so uh this rarely is is is necessary in the agriculture but a lot of times we have you know uh non-scheduled missions after after the big rain comes or or after some event occurs on the farm the clients are asking us to assess the situation so they can see if they need to apply pesticides or or nutrients or they if they need to do some some some actionable uh uh stuff to optimize their their production production of of the crops so we in agic has also opted to dual Source verification for maximum accuracy uh because we've you we've decided to use the power of drone data collection to verify uh the collected aerial data imagery with

**[10:47]** iot sensor data that is static on the field so with that we are ensuring maximum accuracy and if the Drone detects let's say right patch in the field our soil sensors can confirm why it is dry so basically whether it is the due to the water water stress poor soil conditions and or any factor with that uh we reduce the false positives and ensure the farmers that that take right corrective action so basically basically one gets the cross reference with the another so iot and the drones are complimenting each other and we get really really uh accurate and precise uh data and insights and information for the farmers to make an informative decisions to to optimize their Crop Production uh also there are lots of other benefits you know with the with the automated drones in the crop uh Health assessments and in the smart farming uh versus to traditional farming methods they they usually rely either

**[11:49]** on manual field inspection uh or manually piloted drones both require significant time and expertise uh because uh if you want as I've said if you have multiple sites multiple Farms if you have the manually controlled drones it is barely impossible you know to act just after the rain stops or just after something happens on on the field you cannot uh manually go on the remote location buy car and put your drone in the air and and act as you can act with the Drone in uh box systems so remote control drones are are pretty much more effective and faster and better than the manual operations they also provide the scalability so one system can manage multiple Farms remotely uh they of course as I've spoken before they they they provide continuous monitoring so these are the scheduled flights they can provide consistent crop Health tracking every day every hour or or just in the morning just

**[12:52]** in the evening based on on on the people's needs we have a lot of interesting requests from our clients that are producing Vine so so in Vineyard they they they ask a lot of things that we are we are surprised but probably these are the secrets to good wines uh the automated ones also also they reduce the labor so labor reduction is also also a big thing so because there is no need for on-site drone Pilots or or on-site manual inspections and and time consuming to get the results from the uh those inspections uh so basically after completing its Mission the Drone autonomously returns to its dock they recharge they transmit all the collected data to the cloud which ensures uh uninterrupted operations 24/7 on the farm uh monitoring without any human involvement uh a lot of times we get uh we get comparisons

**[13:53]** uh of the data taken by the drones versus the satellite imagery uh because of course satellite imagery also also provides a multispectral imagery and people do use that a lot so uh for buting points I always like to say is is the first is resolution versus details it's simple drones capture what satellites will miss so because the satellites they capture the images from hundreds of kilometers above the Earth so this is making it impossible to get the fine details needed for the precise plan Health monitoring uh drumes however fly at low altitudes and they use high resolution multispectral cameras allowing us to see individual plants and variations within the fields so basically the drones are being used to Target specific Farms to Target micro G targeting uh area so you can get uh really really accurate Insight not just from the multispectral imagery and from the indices that

**[14:58]** we are we are getting from this data but also the visual inspection uh which is impossible to get from the data uh that you can get from the satellite so there is also an a problem with the ond demand that VAR scheduled monitoring uh which is one of the biggest drawbacks of the SAT satellite that they follow the fixed orbits and schedules right so if a farmer needs uh if the farman needs immediate crop heal data they'll have to wait for the next available pass which could be days or even the weeks later uh which again uh uh is not a handy thing to do for the farmer if they need to react accordingly to their Farms because in five days uh if if disease started you know to spread it will be over for them in five days so they need to have the accurate data on time on the other hand of course drones can be launched immediately opposing to orbital schedules and as often as they needed uring the real

**[15:58]** time actionable insights the third thing uh is the weather dependencies this uh uh I got from my colleagues that a lot of people that are working in Asia they have this problem when there are the the rain Seasons the Monson Seasons so the satellites uh imagery are often blocked or distorted by the clouds by the haze or the atmospheric interference uh this makes it unfortunately unreliable during the bad weather and drones do fly below the cloud cover uh which ensures that every scan provides clear and accurate data no matter the weather conditions uh and the fourth thing the fourth thing is the accuracy and data quality of course the satellites do offer a wider field of view but their data is often too bro to be used for targeted farm management so they can be used for for for the regions or the part of the countries if you want to have you know data for that but if you are a farmer that have 10 hectar 100 or even 1,000 hectares you do want to have specific data for your farm

**[17:04]** because from our experience people don't really much care for the for the other farms for the neighboring Farms they they do care for their own Farms because uh they're producing their own crop and they want to see what is happening on their own fields and how they need to assess their own crops with that being said the satellites aren't aren't you know 100% precise to do that while the drones on the other hand they collect the ultra precise localized data making it easier to identify the water stress nuclear deficiencies disease outbreaks or any other anomalies that can be addressed before uh the problem occurs on the field and the catastrophe you know uh eats the crops or or or or something else happens so uh of course there is always a question about the cost versus value uh because the satellites they may seem like a cheaper options for a broad monitoring and they are but their lack of precision and realtime capabilities make them less valuable

**[18:05]** especially for the farmers who need the actionable farm specific data uh drones do provide on demand Precision monitoring ensuring that every DEC decision is backed by the most accurate information possible which often leads to successful farming and unsuccessful farming uh so with that being said the data collected from drone aerial inspection and in impact on the crop health is is more than than important you know to have a successful farming operation and to optimize the yields and to reduce the cost so uh drones as by now we already know they are not just flying cameras uh they are Advanced agricultural tools and they need to be viewed as such and they can collect the vest amount of data to help farmers make informed real time decisions so uh the things that we are we are we are already most talking about is the

**[19:05]** multispectral Imaging this is something that we are seeing beyond the human eye with that uh it is one of the most important important and Powerful tools that we use in aerial inspections unlike the traditional photography these cameras captured the near infrared light allowing us to see the plant stress that is invisible to the human eye this means that we can detect diseases nutrient deficiencies or drought stress before they even become a problem they also can be used to detect a lot of other things which is uh you know crop specific problems pests that are occurring on on on the production uh uh lifespan of the crop so basically this is this is your your uh analysis from day one to to to the last day before the Harvest with that you will get all the information needed to protect and to optimize uh your fields and and and to boost your production of course with that being said

**[20:11]** you will lower the usage of uh nutrients of pesticides of basically of all resources because you will get the information to to to have the informed decisions on what you will do which day you will do in which time will do uh the second thing that we are using of in in in crop Health assessment is the termal Imaging uh with that we are spotting you know the water stress so the drones uh are using the thermal imaging to monitor the temperature deficiencies across the field uh this will help you detect the irrigation Problems by identifying the dry areas where the plants are struggling due to water stress so the farmers with that information they can use the data to find T their irrigation systems and prevent crop loss this is a a big thing in in farming especially in the areas that there aren't many you know most of the people they don't have uh water as a

**[21:13]** free resource so this is this is water is a scarcity especially in in when you are watering the plants so many of the governments uh our clients tells us they restrict the water usage so this is of super important because they will invest in automated irrigation systems but the this is not enough because they don't have information on how they will use it because somewhere uh because of of of the the elevation of the field uh the water will be you know less absorbed and somewhere it will be more absorbed so if you have the Imaging from multispectrum from thermal from aerial Imaging from aial data you will see where do you need to you know put more water where do you you need to P less water again to optimize to save costs to save money and to optimize to earn more money with with more crop produced uh we are also using of course the RGB high resolution photos uh so you can get a clear picture of crop

**[22:17]** conditions uh this is this is being like video inspections uh so the so the agricultural experts can can use that to see to see what is happening uh if there are any any defects on on the leaves or on the crops so we are giving Farmers a highly detailed view of the plant conditions of the canopy coverage of the soil health and this is of course especially used in monitoring the plant growth spotting any physical damages or identifying the weeds uh so of course they can act accordingly with that information uh we are also we are also uh giving the information about canot be heal and grow monitoring because by flying the multiple missions over time over the course of of of grow time our drums can track crop development and biomass growth so this help agronomist and Farmers to monitor plant uniformity and they decide whether the certain area needs replanting fertilization

**[23:19]** or past control intervention so basically what it means that uh the two plant will not develop the same they don't have the same uh uh conditions even if you are giving them it is it is different so basically with that you can you can see which one is developing better which areas of your field are developing and nurtur better so you can optimize and nurture the other parts of the field based on this where the plants are growing the best so with that you will always always optimize and you will always uh uh have the better View and you will always uh uh take the better choices regarding of of of which plants are developing the best so basically the AAL data also helps assess the soil health and structure we can detect the erosion prone areas poor drainage zones compacted soil that can affect the root growth and yield before people are planting we can also also also give them information on that which can basically provide

**[24:24]** crucial for for for the whole farming process uh with all of that with all all all all the smart system for farming AIC you are getting the benefits uh not just of the iot systems and I detection and and and analyzes but also of the automated drones for the smart Agriculture and you will get of course the enhance efficiency cost reductions higher yield and crop quality because on informed decisions you will also improve the quality you will get the echol labels because you will use lesser chemistry and less less resources uh you will be more sustainable and you will you will of course contribute to Environmental Protection uh a lot of our clients are getting are getting funds from European union and and other funds because if they are eco-friendly they will get you know uh uh uh benefits from from their countries uh

**[25:26]** you will save the water uh remotely monitoring and data driven decisions are are are are given to you with so basically automated drones are are a game changer in agricultural business and and they're basically reforming and redefining the industry as as the tractors were redefining the industry once the oxes are are are were out of uh view this is uh now we're witnessing you know the revolution uh as the drones are entering entering the industry and they're basically uh changing the industry and revolutionizing AG agriculture as we speak so and we are we are trying to contribute on on that part so our logic is also also also trying to get a step ahead of it so with that thank you everybody for your time uh Rohan thank you again for for for moderating and and for having me here and with that I'm I'm open for questions thank you so much Thomas La uh that was an insightful discussion on how AI

**[26:26]** power drones are transforming agriculture helping Farmers take proactive approach to crop Health Management so uh we have few questions in the Q&A Tab and I would just like to quickly uh take some of those so uh Thomas La we have one question what softwares are you using for the complete solution so basically we we as I've said the the system section is divided into three parts uh I will I will focus on the Drone automation parts now and we are of course using FlytBase so this is this is uh giving us the opportunity to be you know seemlessly integrate every specific needs from our clients because there are many specific needs from our clients and and uh we need to be elusive in a way to act accordingly uh uh to cater everyone's needs and with FlytBase we do have we do have that possibilities because we uh can automate a lot of things we can issue the specific missions we can take the manual control so basically we are we

**[27:30]** are really really versatile uh thank thankfully to FlytBase you know uh uh and we with that can Implement our own ideas our own process Set uh by help of the flly base uh platform to act accordingly on the fields and to use the drones you know 100% possible in a way that still hasn't been used before also for the processing yeah also for the data processing we are using like uh third party softwares that are analyzing the multispectral imagery uh some of our partners are academic you know academies and they're using scientific grade ones we are using uh some like pix4d or or other ones uh that are being also automated and Inter integrated with with FlytBase so this is this is something that that it's being automated with with you guys

**[28:30]** here thank you so much Thomas La for that elaborative answer uh we have another question from Bob uh he's asking are the third drones an alternative solution uh beside the nested drone solution sorry uh there's a question are the third drones an alternative solution are the third drones I haven't didn't hear you good yeah tet tet drones oh tet drones uh well the Tetra drones uh basically depends on the farm because what gives you Insight is aerial inspection so if you have I don't know like 10 hectars uh you need to you need to be able to inspect all these tense hectors so depending on the LT you are flying the Tetra drones can be solution but uh I I I wouldn't say that they are they're good as a non-ed one because they don't have uh the the range so

**[29:31]** the range is the biggest problem our our uh Farms that we are catering have maybe 50 hectares so tet drones you will have to have hundreds of kilometers of of wire to you know tet them but uh with that comes in hand the Drone docks because if you want to have a longer fly time you have the Drone docks we have our own drone dock in in AIC system that swaps the batteries so so after we do the 30 minute fight times the Drone comes back stop the batteries and once it is uh getting continuing its Mission it will the battery will charge and while it come back it will give another full one because we have a pack of five in it so basically you can have the continuous operation for 24/7 as I've said so so tet drones for this use case I wouldn't recommend I don't say that they don't have you know their own their own uh uh uh

**[30:31]** Pros regarding and versus to non-ed ones but for large are area scanning I I wouldn't recommend them thank you so much thas uh there's another question uh like are there any specific crops or agricultural environments where AI power drone monitoring is more beneficial uh uh where well uh yeah yeah because I'm I'm I'm having problem with hearing it yeah yeah I will again repeat are there any specific crops where the AI powered drone monitoring could be beneficial well we we we are crop agnostic we have to tell it like this so we we can Implement our system on any crops whether is a wheat fruit Tomatoes potatoes apples anything basically basically uh there is a different approach on

**[31:32]** monitoring the data and different approach to farming each one of it but Gathering the data and uh providing that data to the expert uh is pretty much the same there are some variations of course there always will be variations but uh we are able to address any crops from from uh uh uh wiards to to wheat it it basically it basically doesn't doesn't uh play that much difference for us so we can Implement anywhere basically perfect thomasl one last question uh what has been the ROI for the farmers pre and post using such Solutions uh well basically it a lot of depends on the on the scale of your farm and uh this is this is uh also important you know to know what crops are you uh harvesting so there are are some high value crops there are low value crops so

**[32:36]** basically if if you are having one hectare of wheat uh regarding of one hectare of Basil uh you will of course have a lot of Roi on the basil because it's one kilogram is like 20 times more than than one kilogram of wheat so it varies a lot and it depends a lot but Roi are I don't want to say a specific number but it's it's it's what now we are expecting uh uh and we are experiencing with our clients let's say in the fruit business with the blueberries they are they are getting a bit less than one year and so they are also trying to you know integrate in in the other other fields because they have you know the the the the test Farms now they want to integrate in the whole business we're also speaking with a lot of uh different clients from a lot of different uh countries uh they they want to integrate our systems on the state level

**[33:36]** so the ministries of Agriculture and the government officials are interested in integrating our systems in their you know processes and and to support their own Farmers through their through through a lot of initiations you know to integrate agic as as the part of their state development programs so Roi is pretty good and and not just that but we are we are basically uh giving a lip you know to to agriculture production on each of those countries or or or or uh uh we are pushing them you know into into the modern era of farming perfect thank you so much Thomas la for the detailed answers and yeah with that we have come up to the end of the presentation uh big thank you to Thomas La mnak for sharing his expertise and walking us through how AGR Logics automated drone Solutions are reshaping how we monitor crops detect diseases optimize yields Etc

**[34:38]** this session to be very honest has actually shown that agricultural uh inspection is not just about intuition it's mostly now about data driven decision making realtime monitoring and also automation to ensure high efficiency so last but not least uh we also have a booth for agogic uh which you can navigate to by going to the booth section uh the booth uh section will be live from 12:00 p.m. C to 12:30 p.m. C and again from 2:15 p.m. C to 3:15 p.m. C there in you can have uh one-on-one interaction with Thomas lab and discuss more on how crop Health monitoring is being done in Europe and all other parts of the world with that yep thank you so much everyone for joining in from different parts of the globe uh really appreciate your time and hope everybody is having great time at nesen feel free uh to show your love on social media handles by tagging # nesen and yeah uh also let us know how you find the session in the comment section below yep Wishing every much everybody for your

**[35:41]** time as well and and Rohan and guys from the N gen thank you for having me uh see you in the boat absolutely thank you so much Thomas and everybody have a great day bye