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South Central MN | do either you or your son farm? Meaning no offense, but questions such as "How many crops die due to the weeds particularly in the farmland" suggest that you don't? Unless a weed infestation is particularly bad, crops generally do not die from weeds. Reduced yield or harvestability, sure, but weeds don't typically kill crops outright.
The reason I ask is that if you don't have any experience with farming, the questions asked in this survey aren't really going to give you the answers you're looking for. Its a situation of not knowing the right questions to ask and/or not knowing how to interpret the results. If you do farm and the questions are framed the way the are because your son is a young student, then that changes things a bit, but his survey could still be improved.
For example, none of the questions asked a for a monetary measurement of a producer's current weed control plan, how much $$ they're losing due to the weeds, or how much they'd be willing to spend if drones somehow improved their operation. Ultimately, cost & effectiveness compared to current methods will determine if drones ever become feasible for weed control.
Also, there isn't any question about the producer's current methods of weed control. An organic farmer will have very different responses to all your questions than a full spray GMO farmer. You need to be able to properly sort the responses. For example, its likely that the organic guy will have some weed yield loss, while the chem farmer won't have any. That doesn't mean that the chem farmer isn't still looking for a better method, but you need to understand why the answers are different.
In my opinion, the survey needs to include the following:
1. what is your current cost/ac for weed control?
2. what are you current weed control methods?
2. what is your current lost production due to weeds in bu/ac (or tons/ac, etc)?
3. what is your current revenue due to weeds in $/ac?
You might also define whether you are discussing aerial or land drones, or both. | |
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Weeding drones school project survey
