Do you provide NDVI / multispectral imagery?

Our aerial scouting focuses on paired radiometric thermal and high-resolution RGB. Thermal-based water-stress mapping and visual stand verification cover the inspection use cases most farms actually act on.

How often should I scout from the air?

Most growers benefit from a scheduled in-season cadence (every 2-4 weeks during critical windows) plus event-triggered flights after major storms.

Aerial inspection of a row crop field showing irrigation patterns, drainage anomalies, and crop stress zones identified by paired thermal and visual drone imagery

Core Service

Agricultural Drone Inspections

Aerial thermal and high-res inspections for NC farms — irrigation diagnostics, livestock and field checks, drainage mapping, and stand verification.

Overview

Most acres go unwalked, and the issues that hurt yield — broken pivots, plugged tile, ponding, weak emergence, livestock down — usually start small. Holmes and Watson scouts farms with paired radiometric thermal and high-resolution optical drones, giving growers a fast, repeatable look at what's actually happening across the operation. We focus on what aerial inspection does best: catching irrigation failures, mapping drainage, verifying stand emergence, locating livestock, and spotting stressed zones that warrant a ground walk.

Why Choose Drone Agricultural Aerial Inspections

Walking every acre is impossible; flying every acre is routine. Paired thermal and visual aerial scouting catches the problems most likely to hurt yield, while they're still small.

When to use it: Use agricultural aerial inspection for in-season scouting (especially during pivot operation and after storms), pre-harvest stand verification, post-storm damage documentation, and as part of a recurring season-long scouting program.

What We Inspect

Irrigation system performance and pivot/leak detection (thermal)
Field drainage, ponding, and ditch condition mapping
Stand counts, emergence verification, and replant zones
Crop water-stress hot spots flagged by thermal contrast
Livestock location, count, and welfare checks
Storm, hail, and flood damage documentation

Our Process

Mission Planning

Walk the operation with the grower, map field boundaries, and define which fields, structures, or herds need recurring eyes on them.

Paired Thermal + RGB Capture

Autonomous grid flights collect radiometric thermal and high-resolution visual imagery in a single pass.

Anomaly Identification

We mark thermal water-stress zones, drainage problems, broken irrigation, livestock concerns, and damaged sections of field.

Field-Ready Reporting

Geo-tagged orthomosaic, annotated PDF, and a punch-list of locations worth driving to before they become yield loss.

Deliverables

High-resolution RGB and thermal orthomosaics, geo-tagged anomaly punch list, drainage/ponding maps, livestock and stand-count reports, and storm-damage documentation packages.

Cost Factors

Total acreage and field clustering
Recurring program vs. one-off scout
Reporting depth (basic anomaly punch list vs. integrated agronomy reporting)

Frequently Asked Questions

Stuck or broken pivots, plugged tile causing ponding, water-stress hot spots, weak emergence zones, and downed or stranded livestock are the highest-value finds.