Whether soaring about corn fields to assess field health or zeroing in on water sources, drones have become an important part of Waterborne’s Field Study Work. Fitted with multiple cameras and with licensed pilots navigating their path, our commercial drones are a far cry from the toys children play with. Instead, these sophisticated air tools have enabled our scientists to view properties and collect data from vantage points and within timeframes previously only dreamt about. In keeping with Waterborne’s commitment to technology and staying ahead of our clients’ needs, we recently upgraded our drone fleet. 

We began our drone work with the trusty DJI Matrice 100, which after entering the market in 2016, quickly became a popular choice for commercial operators with its high-quality imaging and range of capabilities for conducting surveys. As with the progression of many technologies, however, it was time for us to research newer models that met Waterborne’s client needs. Say hello to our DJJ Mavic 3 Multispectral drone!

The DJI Mavic 3 Multispectral drone system is a much smaller and more efficient drone that packs a wallop in terms of imaging power and operational efficiency. Over the last decade, the technology within drone platforms has advanced astronomically. More efficient batteries and rotors made way for lighter airframes and more advanced optics blazed the trail for lighter camera packages producing more impressive and variable imagery. 



With a lighter drone, Waterborne has gained an increase in...

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Recently, CDPR released PREM (version 6.0) which includes some new features such as a rate calculator, additional chemical input data (e.g., SMILES), Down-the-drain products, and vegetative filter strip (VFS) mitigation. Figure 1 shows the options for running Down-the-drain (DtD) products. Along with the chemistry and application information, the user can input a Wastewater Treatment Plant removal and PREM will calculate the risk quotient for the DtD products. For agriculture products, if the user chooses to run a VFS, the user can input a flow length (Figure 2) and the model will run VFSMOD. Figure 3 shows an example of results from running a 25-ft VFS.

Waterborne is eager to assist our clients with their California modeling needs whether its pesticides used for agriculture, residential/commercial or rice or Down-the-drain products (e.g., pet shampoos, indoor pest control, etc.).

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Amy Ritter was named an American Chemical Society AGRO Division Fellow this year along with Tom Sparks, Pat Havens, and Edmund Norris. The AGRO Fellow Award is given for continued and substantial contributions of time, talent, and service to the AGRO division and to agrochemical science for a minimum of six years.

Amy has been an active and dedicated member of the AGRO Division for over 20 years. She has shown her commitment to AGRO through her leadership roles and participation in committees and conferences. She served on the Executive Committee from 2014 through 2023. In 2016, Amy attended the ACS Leadership Institute in Dallas, TX as the AGRO division representative. Additionally, she participated in AGRO’s Strategic Planning in 2017 in DC. Over the years, she has been a co-organizer for over ten symposia for the ACS Fall Conference and has co-authored over 20 presentations.

Waterborne's Field Scientists regularly travel to complete our clients' Field Studies programs when conditions are optimal, often to 4-5 states in the same week! By planning our client work ahead of time, we can maximize efficiencies by driving a loop between sites. Recent weeks saw our team starting and ending at our Columbia, Missouri office, with sites in Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, and Missouri itself in between. While not always the case, this last trip's weather was perfect, making it a smooth and efficient outing.

Currently, the U.S. is in the midst of a lobbyist battle royale for control of the domestic drone market. Drone manufacturers are facing a mountain of challenges that include import tariffs impacting 70% of the market, the legality of the airspace itself, and defense-induced security-related issues. We just want to use them for environmental work! These are the drone-related issues we’re tracking on our clients’ behalf:

Tariffs. While Western manufacturers are making headway, DJI, a Chinese firm, still holds approximately 70% of the global market share. However, there has been a concerted public relations effort to associate DJI tech with the Chinese Communist Party, and a new slew of tariffs on Chinese tech imports have made their sales in the USA that much more difficult. What began under the Trump administration as a long list of tariffed imports was increased when the Biden Administration added tariffs targeting the Chinese tech sectors. These includes drone producer, DJI. 

Airspace. Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) lobbying groups in Washington DC are battling over the legality of the commercial drone airspace with domestic producers like Skydio and IT giants like Google leading the charge. The ultimate goal is to rid the drone airspace 0-400 feet Above Ground Level (AGL) of consumer drones so that logistics companies can...

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Travel woes akin to “Planes, Trains, and Automobiles” could not stop our Principal and Manager, Environmental Modeling and Risk Assessment, Amy Ritter from reaching Piacenza, Italy and the XVII Symposium on Pesticide Chemistry on September 4th. According to Amy Ritter, "it was wonderful to be back in Piacenza, Italy and be able to interact in person with European friends (modelers from industry, academia, and regulatory)."

One of the hot topics of the conference was reduction of off-target drift and runoff using precision agriculture. Amy presented two posters on rice modeling: “Higher tier alternative for rice paddy modelling of agrochemicals in southern Europe” and “Mitigations and higher tier rice paddy modelling of agrochemicals in Europe.”

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