CAA-Approved Multispectral Surveys

Drone Agricultural & Crop Health Surveys.

Compare quotes from specialist UK drone operators for calibrated NDVI and NDRE crop-health maps, VRA prescriptions for spreaders and sprayers, yield-anomaly overlays, and BPS/SFI compliance imagery.

“Every drone pilot on this network is personally vetted by me — insurance, qualifications, flight history.”

Peter Leslie · Founder & GVC Drone Pilot

Trusted by site managers & agencies across the UK

Need your fields flown?

Post your details to compare quotes from agri-specialist drone pilots.

Walking the field misses half the story.

Arable farmers, agronomists, and estate managers make high-value input decisions with eyes alone. A calibrated multispectral flight sees stress, disease, and yield anomaly weeks before the agronomist can.

Stress Spotted Too Late

By the time nutrient, water, or disease stress is visible to the naked eye in crop, yield is already being lost. NDRE in particular picks up subsurface stress 10–14 days earlier than the human walk-through.

Fertiliser Overspend

Blanket fertiliser applications waste money on fields that don't need it and miss zones that do. A VRA prescription from a calibrated multispectral map typically repays a flight in a single application.

Yield Anomalies Hidden Until Harvest

Combine yield maps arrive too late to intervene. In-season drone imagery catches drainage faults, compaction, and cultivar failures while there's still time to act or, at minimum, document the cause for insurance.

A drone with a camera is not multispectral.

By Peter Leslie, Founder & GVC Drone Pilot

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Useful crop-health data comes from calibrated radiometry — dedicated multispectral sensors with incident-light measurement and reflectance calibration targets, not a picture tinted green in software.

Every agricultural survey on this network is flown by drone operators running genuine multispectral payloads (MicaSense RedEdge-P, Altum-PT, or DJI Mavic 3M) with documented calibration and reflectance panels. The NDVI map you get out is the one your agronomist can trust.

The result is a season-long decision-support dataset: VRA shapefiles your RTK spreader can consume, anomaly overlays for your agronomist, and a dated record for scheme compliance.

Calibrated Multispectral

PDRA01 & £5M Public Liability

Outputs your agronomist and spreader can both use.

Our network operators deliver calibrated, VRA-ready outputs for precision agriculture and scheme compliance.

NDVI & NDRE Maps

Calibrated vegetation indices across every field, delivered as GeoTIFF or GeoPackage for your farm software. NDVI for canopy vigour, NDRE for subsurface nitrogen stress — timed to the critical growth stages of your rotation.

VRA Prescription Shapefiles

Zoned prescriptions output as shapefile or ISO-XML — ready for RTK-enabled spreaders, sprayers, and drills from Amazone, Kuhn, Trimble, and John Deere. Fertiliser, PGR, and pesticide application, targeted where the crop actually needs it.

Anomaly & Compliance Reports

Annotated anomaly overlays for drainage, compaction, pest, and disease incidents, plus high-resolution orthomosaics timestamped to support BPS, SFI, and Countryside Stewardship inspection records.

Book your agri survey in 3 steps.

We connect you with the specific precision-agriculture specialists you need, instantly.

Describe the Farm

Tell us the crop, the growth stage, the area, and what output (NDVI, VRA, compliance) you need. Takes under two minutes.

Compare Specialists

We route your brief to multispectral-equipped drone operators in your region. You receive competitive quotes with sensor type and delivery format.

Fly & Report

Your drone pilot flies the calibration panels and the fields, processes the multispectral data, and delivers NDVI / NDRE maps plus VRA-ready prescriptions.

Start Your Project Brief

Lifting yield, cutting input spend.

See how arable farmers, agronomists, and estate managers use drone agronomy through our network.

"The VRA prescription from a RedEdge-P flight went straight into our Amazone spreader. Nitrogen spend fell, and the weakest zones got the lift they actually needed. Paid for the survey twice over on one application."

William E.

Arable Farmer, Boston (Lincs)

"NDRE picked up nitrogen stress a fortnight before my walk-through would have. We adjusted the top-dressing plan across seven clients and the yield result at harvest spoke for itself."

Siobhan M.

Agronomist, Shrewsbury

"We use the orthomosaics for our SFI evidence pack. The estate inspector accepted the dated imagery on the spot and we had clean records for every parcel. No more printing Google aerials."

Tom R.

Estate Manager, Perth

Agricultural Survey FAQ

Technical questions on multispectral sensors, VRA, and flight timing.

Which multispectral cameras are used?

Network operators typically fly MicaSense RedEdge-P, MicaSense Altum-PT, or DJI Mavic 3M. All three are genuine calibrated multispectral payloads with incident-light sensors and reflectance panels — not RGB cameras with a green filter. The right choice depends on scale and whether you need a thermal band alongside the multispectral.

Can prescriptions be made RTK-GPS compatible for VRA spreaders?

Yes. VRA prescriptions are delivered as shapefile or ISO-XML, ready to load into RTK-enabled terminals from John Deere, Trimble, Amazone, Kuhn, and similar. Zone thresholds and application rates are tuned with your agronomist so the prescription reflects the agronomic plan, not a generic ramp.

How often should fields be flown per season?

Three critical flight windows is the typical rhythm for winter-sown cereals: T1 (pre-stem extension, informing top-dressing), T2 (flag-leaf, informing fungicide and late-N), and pre-harvest (yield anomaly and documentation). High-value horticulture and irrigated crops often justify a tighter fortnightly rota.

What's the difference between NDVI and NDRE?

NDVI uses red and near-infrared bands and saturates early in a dense canopy. NDRE uses the red-edge band and penetrates that canopy far better, giving a much more useful nitrogen-stress signal in mid- to late-season wheat, barley, and oilseed rape. Most network operators deliver both as standard.