featured image for The weed-mapping drone that goes the extra mile

The weed-mapping drone that goes the extra mile

1 November 2022

The Single family have been farming their broadacre cropping property near Coonamble, in New South Wales, for close to 70 years and third generation farmer Ben Single says there has always been a special focus on the environment.

One of the key areas of attention in the past 30 years for Ben and his father, John, has been trialling different products and machinery to minimise the use of chemicals on weeds in fallow situations.

“We just didn’t like the available equipment – we are end-users ourselves – and we saw an opportunity to make it better.”

With Ben’s mechanical and aerospace engineering qualifications, his father’s on-farm experience and his brother Tony’s cropping expertise, the Singles developed Single Shot, a drone which is custom-fitted with a sensor and specially designed software to map the land and geolocate weeds as little as 4cm in size in fallow situations.

Click here for the full story | AgFutures GrowAG

More Posts

Can exoskeletons ease silviculture work?

Pruning and planting are among the most physically demanding tasks in forestry. Workers spend long hours undertaking repetitive movements, working with their arms elevated, handling loads, and navigating challenging terrain. While these activities are fundamental to establishing and maintaining productive ...

Global sustainability progress report

The International Council of Forest and Paper Associations (ICFPA) released its biennial Sustainability Progress Report which demonstrates progress in seven key areas of sustainability. The 2026 report also highlights the role the forest products sector can play in helping meet ...

Study shows forest soils help offset methane emissions

Run over two years, the research looked at the methane uptake of soils in three planted forests – Orton Bradley Park and McLeans Island in Canterbury and Kaingaroa (New Zealand’s largest commercial pine plantation, in the Bay of Plenty) – ...

Faster wood formation matters more than longer growing seasons in a warming climate

In non-tropical forests, cold winters hinder tree growth. There, climate warming prolongs the period during which trees absorb carbon through photosynthesis and store it in wood, known as the growing season. This could potentially mitigate further climate change as wood ...

Beyond Woodchips: Australia’s hardwood plantation industry must innovate

For more than three decades, Australia’s hardwood plantation industry has been built on a simple but largely successful business model: growing world-class plantation fibre for export to Asia’s pulp mills. It has underpinned regional economies, attracted significant investment and established ...

Free program to help SMEs advance AI and digital tech ideas in Queensland

The free eight-week online program, delivered by Australia’s national science agency, CSIRO, helps businesses turn early-stage ideas into actionable R&D plans while building connections with expert facilitators and researchers. Offered through the Queensland Government-funded Regional University Industry Collaboration (RUIC) program, ...

Science safeguards NZ’s rarest ecosystems

Some of New Zealand’s most remarkable ecosystems are also among its rarest. Now, new research is aimed at helping councils and land managers better understand and protect them. Led by the Bioeconomy Science Institute Maiangi Taiao, the two-year project will develop practical ...

AI identifies trees from the air as accurately as the human eye

A new remote sensing method identifies the species of individual trees with an accuracy of up to 90 percent. Detailed data on species makes forestry more efficient and improves the monitoring of biodiversity. Thanks to recent research on tree species ...

Learning Through the Storm: Report released

The Top of the South Wood Council, with support from Te Uru Rākau – New Zealand Forest Service, has recently released Learning Through the Storm, a report on the widespread windthrow caused by the severe storm events of 2025. On July ...

Carbon Forestry 2026 – Event Summary

The Carbon Forestry 2026 Conference, held in Rotorua on 4–5 August, brought together forest managers, investors, industry leaders and government representatives to explore some of the big questions facing carbon forestry. The Government’s commitment to forestry was reinforced by Climate ...

Forestry confirms new training partnership with Competenz

New Zealand’s forestry sector has confirmed it will align its workplace vocational training with the new Engineering and Manufacturing Private Training Establishment (PTE), operating under Competenz. The decision follows extensive consultation with employers, contractors and training providers, led by the ...

FPInnovations launch new forest seeding by drone trial

In the wake of wildfires, bringing affected areas back into production poses a major challenge, particularly in remote or hard-to-reach areas. In Canada, wildfires affect an average of 2.8 million hectares of forest each year, underscoring the importance of exploring innovative ...

Extracting knowledge from a forest 3d digital twin using TreeTools SilvaCloud

Modern LiDAR technology is transforming the way we understand forests. With the introduction of sensors such as the DJI Zenmuse L3, collecting detailed three-dimensional information about forest structure, terrain, and vegetation has become more accessible than ever before. At Interpine, ...

Opportunities for improved firefighter safety in Australia

John O’Donnell Opinion Piece Firefighter safety in Australia requires urgent attention as forest structure, fuel loads and fire behaviour shift toward more dangerous conditions. Past crown fires have created dense shrub dominated understoreys, abundant dead wood, reduced height stratification and ...

Annual reputation survey provides insight into public perceptions of forestry

The results of the Forest Growers Levy Trust’s 7th annual Social Licence to Operate (SLO) survey have been published, continuing to build one of the sector’s most valuable long-term evidence bases for understanding how New Zealanders view forestry. After 7 years ...

Revisiting a forest experiment that lay forgotten for 30 years

What’s the best way to manage a forest? Australians have argued about this for decades. The debate is often framed as binary: do we protect forests entirely, or harvest trees to support local economies and communities? The reality is more ...

Hexagon acquires ITRES to expand the scope of airborne mapping

Hexagon has acquired ITRES, the Calgary-based provider of high-performance airborne hyperspectral and thermal imaging systems, strengthening its ability to deliver richer multi-sensor geospatial data for advanced airborne mapping and analysis. The acquisition unites two complementary portfolios under one provider. Hexagon ...

How ‘digital twins’ could help predict the fate of a forest

In his office in MSU’s forestry department, EEB core faculty member David Carter shows off an image of a virtual forest on his laptop. It’s not just any forest. It’s a computerized replica, or “digital twin,” of a loblolly pine stand, created ...

Call for Presenters – ForestTECH 2027

Innovatek is inviting expressions of interest from technology developers, researchers, forest managers and equipment suppliers interested in presenting at ForestTECH 2027, Australasia’s leading forestry technology conference. The event series is running 9-10 March 2027 in Brisbane, Australia, and 16-17 March ...

NZ safety gains drive drop in forestry’s injury claims

Forestry’s injury claims have fallen by around 34 percent since 2018, reflecting sustained improvements in safety performance and injury prevention across the sector. ACC has highlighted the Forest Industry Safety Council (FISC) as a strong example of what can be ...

New data provides opportunities for wildfire hazard analysis

New research from the Bioeconomy Science Institute Maiangi Taiao aims to improve New Zealand’s wildfire preparedness and response. The institute has developed national-scale wildfire hazard potential data layers to help communities, businesses and wildfire managers better understand the areas that are more likely to burn under high-risk conditions, and how severe fire behaviour is likely to be. The data was developed by simulating more than 500,000 potential ...