A.D. Makepeace drops fertilizer from above with new drone

The A.D. Makepeace Company has introduced a new way of fertilizing their bogs using drones instead of applying fertilizer by hand.

According to A.D. Makepeace Vice President of Marketing and Communication Linda Burke, the drone was used on the University of Massachusetts Amherst cranberry bogs where the school conducts many experiments. She said the drone will help them fertilize more bogs much more efficiently.

“The drone has a 100 pound payload of fertilizer and we’re able to program it so it goes in even loops up and down the bog’s surface,” Burke said. “It’s very low to the surface, much lower than a helicopter can get.”

Burke added Makepeace has used helicopters to fertilize in the past but the drone “is a little bit more precise but it’s limited in the amount of fertilizer it has.”

This is not the first time Makepeace has used drones on their bogs, she said. Last summer Makepeace tested out using drones on their bogs which they continue to use.

“We can get the drone in the air pretty quickly but it’s a little limited in terms of weather,” she said. “It’s a great new tool that we have available to us.”