Drone Spraying for Garlic in California

Garlic runs on a tight calendar: foliar nutrition through bulbing, fungicides for botrytis and purple blotch, and insecticide for thrips. The canopy is low and dense, so coverage must reach into the bed rather than sit on top, and the bulbing window is short.

Drone application flies a low, even pass over the closed canopy, applying a controlled volume per acre across the bed — and it flies when the ground is too soft for a rig, which is often right after irrigation on garlic ground.

Garlic beds are wide, dense, and low; a drone's even, low pass covers the whole bed with the same volume, so no part of the field is under- or over-dosed.

Garlic ground is often irrigated and soft, so a drone flies when a rig would rut or compact the bed — protecting the shallow root zone.

Virelo flies garlic fields across the San Joaquin Valley, timing foliar nutrition and fungicide passes to the bulbing window. Our pilots coordinate with your PCA to time nitrogen and micronutrient passes to bulbing, and botrytis and purple blotch fungicides to the right disease pressure, with GPS-guided flights applying a controlled volume per acre across the bed.

On irrigated garlic ground, a drone flies when the soil is too soft for a rig, which is often right after irrigation when a fungicide pass is most needed. The even, low pass covers the whole bed with the same volume, so no part of the field is under-dosed, and the low flight height keeps product on the target, protecting quality on a high-value crop.