Gardening in our family plot was always something I enjoyed. Whether it was planting the seeds, watering the plants, or even picking out the weeds, I was always excited to garden. This love for gardening is what spurred me on to apply to Summer Residential Governor’s School for Agriculture. However, a main problem that I always wondered about when gardening at home was how one could actively track the terrain and agriculture from a higher view than one could see only on the ground.

This problem was solved by the work of many, including Dr. David Haak, and many PhD students, who were able to investigate this phenomenon by beginning to develop drones, which have the ability to take pictures of farmland and place these images together to create a uniform model of the features of the land they study. The building and investigating of technologies like these not only involve an adequate understanding of agriculture, but also demand computer science and biochemistry knowledge.

With these complete images, farmers would then have the ability to discover ways to improve the health of their crops through changing their soil composition or even adding new forms of pesticides. Although these drones might not be a feasible option for tracking the terrain and agriculture of my family garden, as this technology is highly costly, drones could serve as an important tool for aiding farmers in the future.

-rb