For the first time in the Urals, sowing has been entrusted to unmanned aerial vehicles. At the educational and experimental farm of the Ural State Agrarian University (UrGAU), an agricultural drone sowed a field with rapeseed in approximately 30 minutes — a task that would take a tractor driver several hours. With just a few clicks in a mobile app, the drone takes off and begins planting on autopilot using pre-marked field boundaries. The drone’s detachable tank holds about 50 kilograms of small-seeded crops, enough for several hectares, and can easily be swapped for a spraying tank to protect fields from pests. Before sowing, students and agronomists launched a smaller DJI drone to scan the area, create a detailed field map, and transmit the data to the main agri-drone, which then operated completely offline.
At UrGAU, unmanned technologies are already a reality, not just a future prospect. In 2025, as part of the national project “Unmanned Aircraft Systems,” the university established a small innovative enterprise called UralAgroDrone and formed a pilot team consisting of students. Last year, the team had only two agri-drones; this season, they already have six. Instructors are also upgrading their skills, training as BPLA (unmanned aerial vehicle) instructors and mechanical engineers. According to student pilot Ivan Isakov, the most critical skill is attentiveness — 80–90% of success depends on proper field mapping and marking hazardous areas such as trees and bushes. The university plans to expand this technology into forestry and veterinary medicine.
