How Drones Are Revolutionizing Weed Control In Wyoming

In the past, the Wyoming Weed and Pest Council has relied on their staff to spray and protect areas of the state that have seen, or are susceptible to, non-native plants and weeds.

"Without treatment, invasive plants such as cheatgrass and palmer amaranth could cost Wyoming taxpayers millions of dollars in damage every year. At the Sublette County Weed and Pest District, it fell to team members to spray infected areas by hand, a timely and often less than perfect method" notes the agency.

“When backpackers or a guy with a four-wheeler go out and spray part of an affected area, you’re going to have to refill your pesticide, then go back out to where you left off,” said Lars Anderson of the Sublette County Weed and Pest District. “Maybe you accidently skip an area or don’t start back exactly where you left off. There are little things like that allow invasive weeds sneak between the cracks.”

That’s why a dozen Weed and Pest Districts across the state have begun deploying some of the newest, innovative technology in their fight to keep Wyoming wild and beautiful.

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Specific drones are built to hold 8 gallons of pesticide spray and can be programed to spray large fields with precision accuracy in a third of the time it would normally take.

“Typically, we would have an eight-man backpack crew to do these spraying projects,” said Anderson. “That frees them up to do other things and we can now get more done county-wide than we could before.”

The drone also comes equipped with radar sensors that detects terrain and adjusts accordingly to avoid obstacles and provide an even spray across the desired area, reaching places that Weed and Pest crews could not access before. A path is mapped out on the drones GPS before it takes off, allowing the crew to specify which areas to spray down to the exact inch they desire. The drone then takes off and automatically guides itself through the path, completing its task in a quarter of the time it would take to spray on foot.

“There are some limitations that we’ve had to learn, said Anderson. “If there is a really steep, rugged hillside, it won’t always spray as effectively as it could. These drones are used on crops for flat farms and it doesn’t always do well over some of the rocky terrain we have here in Wyoming. So it isn’t a miracle tool, but it is saving us a lot of time, money and manpower.

Not all districts use the same type of drone and the time spent observing and learning allowed them to develop their own strategies for transporting, deploying, and storing the new drone.

“We all have a close working relationship and we bounce things off each other,” said Anderson. “Things will grow; we’ll share ideas. If we can make anything better in our district, we’ll share it with the others and that’s what makes Wyoming Weed and Pest such a great organization as a whole.”