Oil Seed Rape Sowing By Drone - During The Wettest July in Memory. With fields this wet, using heavy equipment is out of the question so Andrew asked if we could broadcast sow his next Oil Seed Rape crop into his wheat a couple of weeks before harvest. With the field mapped and the 50 litre granule hopper filled, we were ready to get to work. In this 6 hectare field, we were sowing at a rate of 10 kilos of seed per hectare or 4 kilos per acre, so we’d need to a refill 2 thirds of the way through. The idea with under sowing into a standing crop is that the seeds are able to germinate in the warm, moist conditions at the foot of the crop and are protected as they germinate. Then, when the combine comes into harvest the wheat, your crop of Oil Seed Rape is already well established and has hopefully had a chance to grow away from the threat of cabbage stem flee beetle attack. When the drone senses that the hopper is empty, it automatically return to its take off point for a quick pit stop. As you can see, the hopper is almost empty, but it always leaves enough to cover the 2 screw feeders so there are no missed patches. Then it’s a quick refill with seed, and a fresh pair of batteries and the drone is ready to head back to the exact spot where it left off. Flying at 12 meters per second or 43 kilometres per hour, the big XAG P100 drone made short work of this 6 hectare field. 25 minutes after taking off, the job was complete, without any crop damage, no big ruts and without using any diesel.