DRONES ARE quickly becoming a valued tool for no-tillers for many tasks, such as seeding cover crops in a timely manner after harvest, crop scouting or monitoring livestock.

But applying crop protection products, including fungicides, is another possibility as technology and reliability improves. Researchers at Beck’s Hybrids say they’ve been getting many questions about whether drones are just as effective as ground rigs, helicopters or planes.

Over the last 2 years, trials have found drones have consistently performed the same or better as a ground rig. Growers must still think about logistics, as far as the time of day to spray, how batteries, parts and service will be handled and how the drone will be hauled. But drones are expanding the toolbox. 

“If someone says to me, ‘I need to spray and I have a choice between the drone plane and a ground rig.’ I'm going to say, ‘They all work. Go for it,’” says Luke Schulte, a field agronomist for Beck’s in Ohio. “I'm not ready to tell anybody to buy a drone yet, but I’m surprised, shocked, and pleasantly happy that drones work just as well.”

Surprising Results

In Beck’s on-farm spray trial locations in Indiana, central Illinois and Ohio, 2025 was the first year researchers experienced heavy disease pressure, leading to concern that drones wouldn’t perform well.

Control plots with no fungicide recorded a yield of 227 bushels per acre. Corn where the ground rig applied fungicides at 15-20 gallons per acre was harvested at 235 bushels…