At Ardleigh Golf Club, just out of Palmerston, from 3pm on Friday.
Q. Who is invited?
Everyone and anyone is welcome to come.
Anyone interested in wanting to find out more about how drone technology can be used on farms.
Q. What will happen at the event?
Bayden from Airborne Solutions in Wanaka will come over with some drones and show us what they can do including spraying and seeding.
Maybe one or two farmers who use drones in our area will talk about how they use them.
Q. I’ve heard some farmers use drones to emit a barking sound to herd stock.
I have heard of that and not as much labour being required because drones are helping to bring stock in.
Q. Should working dogs in East Otago be nervous they might not have a job come Monday?
I don’t think so, they’ll always have a job.
Drones are just another tool in a farmer’s toolbox.
Q. Why did the group decide on hosting a drone event?
As a catchment group, we’ve been talking about doing something like this for a couple of years, something different, focusing on technology, to try and interest other people in the catchment who are not interested in planting or fencing.
We are always looking at events which will bring the community together and we thought this would be a good event to tie in with a get-together and a barbecue afterwards.
Q. What has been keeping the group busy lately?
In the last month we’ve been rolling out freshwater farm plan meetings in our catchment for East Otago.
For freshwater farms plans, we are part of North Otago and the plans turn on at the beginning of February.
Q. So East Otago farmers are among those who are in the first cab off the rank for freshwater plans?
Yes, we’ve been doing meetings with the Otago Regional Council to inform farmers about what that process is going to be.
We have also been doing our farming with confidence programme, a Ministry for Primary Industries-funded project to do workshops for farmers on integrated farm planning.
We have teamed up with Otago South River Care and just spent a day with them up here, looking at the Karitane Community Nursery and Anderson’s Lagoon, where we are going to plant next year.
There is lots going!
