Tulare, CA - February 11th - Last week Tomahawk Power attended the World Agro Expo, in order to achieve a better understanding of the agricultural arena in the western United States, as it stands in 2016. The show had over 100,000 visitors throughout the 3 days. The World Agro Expo is a large event that covers all areas of farming preparation, growing, harvesting and processing. Tomahawk Power found new products and developments we will pursue in 2016-2017.
In particular aerial drones were among one of the popular items used this year. The main application is for site surveying and monitoring. In an ideal situation the drones take thermo images of the topography of the land and send back data to the farmer with a diagnosis of the crops scanned. These drones have the ability to analyze large sections of land to determine what areas are lacking water, need additional care, in order to give a general idea of the crops health. Tomahawk does not focus on surveying drones, however we do see an opportunity in which drones could apply pesticide spray patterns to fields and help with pest control. By combining the available surveying drone technology and our experience in spraying systems we could have a drone that identifies pest problems and in turn act on the problem by spraying the effected area.
Additionally, other trends we saw this year were walk behind spraying systems. As more vegetables and fruits move into greenhouses for more controlled environments space will become much more limited. Tomahawk would like to develop a walk behind sprayer that can easily get through narrow rows and spray crops on both sides. Additionally, by having a walk-behind skid steer sprayer we can utilize the machine to carry large amounts of liquid to finish big jobs much quicker and effectively, by navigating through lean space requirements .
The World Agro Expo was a great show to get a better understanding of Tomahawk's end user. We plan to make an impact in 2016 and the future in the agricultural world.
