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This is On Point. I'm Magna Chakrabardi. I think that that in science. Learn more at mathworks.com.

This is on point. I'm Magna Chakrabardi.

I think that that's one of the best kept secrets right now in agriculture is drone technology.

Russell Hedrick is a farmer in North Carolina. In December, he spoke with the Associated Press about the growing importance of drone technology in his work.

You know, just looking at the small mapping drones, we use one with NDVI, which we can fly over a cornfield in season,

and we can see, is there a problem area?

Is it fertility? Is it somebody messed up with chemistry? Do we have soil biology issues where that

crop is not growing as well in one area? And we can essentially take that one section out and we can

scientifically test it in the laboratory to see what the problem is and actually grow better food.

NVDI stands for normalized difference vegetation index.

It's a common metric used to measure the density and health of vegetation.

And like Russell Hedrick says, today, farmers use smaller drones to map out their farms and

monitor crops.

Larger agricultural drones can help do things like

spray pesticides and seeds, reducing the need for hard human labor. Some units can carry a payload

of up to 110 pounds and spray up to 50 acres. Al Staley owns a vineyard in San Diego, California,

...