Drone crop scouting and NDVI mapping
A multispectral drone flight gives you whole-farm crop health data at 5 cm resolution — far sharper than free satellite imagery and on-demand rather than weather-dependent. The output is an NDVI or NDRE map you can use for variable-rate nitrogen, disease scouting, or a sanity check on what's actually happening across the farm.
NDVI (Normalised Difference Vegetation Index) is a number that tells you how much healthy green leaf area is reflecting back at the camera. Higher number, healthier crop.
How it differs from satellite
- Resolution. 5 cm per pixel beats Sentinel-2's 10 metre comfortably — patch-level problems show up.
- Timing. Fly when the canopy needs a look, not when the sky happens to be clear over a satellite pass.
- Combined visits. Same trip can scout and (separately) apply.
Where the drone doesn't win: free satellite is fine for regional trend lines. Daily monitoring is also satellite's job — drone is a snapshot, not a feed.
SFI route
The "precision farming" SFI action (CIPM4 in the SFI 2024 handbook) pays around £70/ha/year and can effectively fund a drone scouting programme on its own. Skippy Scout — the precision platform built by Drone Ag — markets this route directly.
SFI26 is changing the action codes and rates and reopens for new applications in 2026. Check the live gov.uk handbook.
Pricing
Indicative UK drone survey pricing starts around £350 for smaller holdings. Advanced NDVI and yield-forecast packages run £1,500 to £5,000 per flight depending on area and analysis depth. Tell us what you need and we'll come back with a firm number.
Common questions
What do I get back? Map layers — typically RGB orthomosaic, NDVI, sometimes NDRE — as image files, GeoTIFFs, or imported into a platform you already use (Skippy Scout, Solvi, Pix4D and similar).
Can the pilot give me a variable-rate prescription? Yes, if you brief that. They'll need to know your spreader or sprayer's prescription format.