Best practices

What good drone survey and spraying practice actually looks like.

The gap between a drone that flies and a survey that's trustworthy is discipline — in flight timing, in calibration, and in what happens on the ground before and after the flight. These are the practices SaveCrop holds itself to, and shares with anyone flying their own programme.

Timing

Fly at the right time, or the data lies to you

Time of day
Mid-morning to early afternoon, avoiding low sun angles that throw long shadows across the canopy and distort reflectance readings.
Wind
Under 15–20 km/h for survey flights; spraying halts above the label's drift threshold, usually lower.
Sky condition
Consistent light — clear sky or uniform overcast. Broken cloud creates shifting shadows that show up as false stress in the NDVI map.
Growth stage
Survey timing tied to the crop's growth calendar, not a fixed date — a stress signal means something different at flowering than at early vegetative stage.

Flight discipline

Before, during and after every flight

Before

Pre-flight

  • Sensor calibration against a reference panel
  • Battery, firmware and airspace check
  • Ground control points set for large or irregular plots
During

In flight

  • Sufficient image overlap for clean stitching
  • Constant altitude for uniform ground resolution
  • Live spotter for line-of-sight and obstacle awareness
After

Post-flight

  • Radiometric correction before NDVI is calculated
  • Flagged zones cross-checked against a ground walk
  • Equipment logged and battery cycle recorded

Spraying practice

Spray to the map, not to the field

The most common mistake in drone spraying isn't the drone — it's applying a flat, uniform rate across a field that the survey already shows is uneven. Variable-rate application, driven by the NDVI map, is what makes precision spraying worth the premium over a blanket pass.

Survey the field, then spray the map it gives you — not the other way round.

Compliance

Operating within the DGCA framework

Every SaveCrop flight is flown by a DGCA-certified remote pilot, within permitted zones and altitude limits, with insurance and flight logs maintained for every plot. If you're building an in-house programme, this is the baseline we'd recommend you match before flying commercially.

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