WHEN it comes to remote-controlled helicopters, the one they’re trialling at the Tamburlaine vineyard at Borenore is somewhat larger than the ones you can pick up at Jaycar.
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At three metres long, the Yamaha Rmax unmanned helicopter is substantially larger than any toy helicopter that any siblings or children have been tormenting the dog with.
Much bigger than any non-military drone on the market, the Rmax is undergoing trials at the organic vineyard to see just how versatile the new technology is.
“Drones just don’t have the capacity to carry a weighty payload, plus the battery life is always too short for any real practical agricultural application,” said Clayton Kiely, the vineyard manager at Tamburlaine’s Orange vineyard.
“To carry weight and stay for a reasonable time in the air, you need to use the good old petrol engine.”
To ascertain the viability of using the helicopter at the orchard, Mr Kiely said the development team was going to spray the vines with a special fluorescent oil that would be able to indicate whether the spray was evenly distributed.
“If the spray is successful, we can then look at using the helicopter for spraying an organic caterpillar control agent or organic fertilisers,” he said.
The helicopter also has a number of applications that Mr Kiely stated went beyond vines.
“It can be used by cherry growers after rain to blow the water out of the trees, or to spray blackberries in areas that are inaccessible and to even be used as a bird scarer,” he said.
Part of what they’ll be examining at the vineyard is not just if it works but at what cost it comes.
“What we’ll have after these two days of trials is some hard and fast data that we can compare to what we’re doing at the moment. Here at 1000 metres above sea level we have to take in issues like the weight it can carry at altitude.
“In the end though we need to look at the cost per hour per hectare, including the operator expense of using the helicopter over conventional methods.”
Yamaha Sky Division business development manager Scott Noble said the trials at Tamburlaine were the first of its kind in Australia.
“It’s been used in some of the California vineyards, but what we’re doing here today is checking volume, speed and coverage of the vines to see if it’s feasible here to use it,” he said.
