MONSTER, The Netherlands (AP) – Dutch garden cress nurseryman Rob Baan has called in high-tech helpers to combat a plague in his greenhouses: palm-sized drones search and destroy moths that produce caterpillars that can eat his crops.
“I have unique products that don’t get certified to spray chemicals and I don’t want to,” Baan said in an interview in a greenhouse bathed in the rosy glow of LED lights that help his seedlings grow. His company, Koppert Cress, exports aromatic seedlings, plants and flowers to top restaurants around the world.
Baan was an avid supporter of innovative technology in his greenhouses and turned to PATS Indoor Drone Solutions, a startup developing autonomous drone systems as greenhouse keepers, to add an extra layer of protection for its plants.
The drones themselves are basic, but they are controlled by smart technology supported by special cameras that scan the airspace in greenhouses.
The drones immediately kill the moths by flying on them and destroying them in the air.
“So he sees the moth fly by, he knows where the drone is … and then he just sends the drone to the moth,” said Kevin van Hecke, technical director of PATS.
There were no moths around during a recent greenhouse visit from The Associated Press, but the company released a video in a controlled environment showing an insect being immediately pulverized by a drone rotor.
The drones are part of a series of pest control systems in Baan’s greenhouses that also contain other insects, pheromone traps and bumblebees.
The drone system is the brainchild of former students at Delft University of Technology who came up with the idea after wondering if they could use drones to kill mosquitoes buzzing around their room at night.
Baan says the drone operating system is smart enough to distinguish between good and bad critters.
“You don’t want to kill a ladybug, because a ladybug is very useful against aphids,” he said. So they have to kill the bad, not the good. And the good ones are very expensive sometimes – I pay at least 50 cents for one bumblebee, so I don’t want them killing my bumblebees. “
The young company is still working on perfecting the technology.
“It’s still a development product, but we … have very good results. We target moths and we remove moths autonomously every night without human intervention, ”said PATS CEO Bram Tijmons. “I think that’s a good step forward.”
Baan also acknowledges that the system still needs to be fine-tuned.
“I think they still need too many drones … but it will be manageable, it will be less,” he said. “I think they can do this greenhouse with maybe 50 small drones in the future, and then it will be very beneficial.”