605 GUIDES · REGULATIONS, PRICES, CRAFT · PAGE 3/29

Professional drone guides — page 3

EU regulations, real prices, mission preparation: concrete answers before commissioning a drone service.

• Conductor clearance survey by drone LiDAR: sag, temperature and regulatory distancesMeasuring the real distance between a conductor and the ground, a building, a road or a railway means modelling the catenary and extrapolating sag to the maximum operating temperature. Method, French regulatory framework and 2026 prices (excl. VAT).
• Land boundary survey by drone: legal precision, complementarity with the licensed surveyor, and priceA drone never legally fixes a property boundary: that is the licensed surveyor's exclusive domain. What a photogrammetric survey genuinely brings before and during a boundary-marking operation, its real precision against the profession's tolerance, and 2026 prices (excl. VAT).
• Olive orchards and drones: water stress and yield forecasting, priceFrance has 50,000 hectares of olive orchards, with 200 to 300 hectares of new super-intensive plantings every year: what drone-based canopy geometry and thermal/multispectral indexes bring to yield forecasting and irrigation management. Method and 2026 prices (excl. VAT).
• Prune d'Agen and drones: water stress and ripeness, price10,500 hectares of orchards under the Pruneau d'Agen IGP in south-west France, a sector weakened two years running by hail and heatwaves. What a thermal drone brings to water stress monitoring and mechanical harvest planning. Method and 2026 prices (excl. VAT).
• Sugar beet and drones: virus yellows and Cercospora leaf spot, priceSince neonicotinoid derogations definitively ended in 2023, virus yellows remains sugar beet's top threat (411,766 hectares in 2024, a 28% average yield drop in 2020). What two studies document on drone detection of virus yellows and Cercospora leaf spot — and what a flight does not replace. Method and 2026 prices (excl. VAT).
• Seabird colonies and drones: surveying a nesting colony without disturbing it, method and priceGround counts of tern or gull colonies undercount birds and risk nest abandonment. What two studies show about drone census reliability, the method (altitude, timing) and 2026 prices (excl. VAT).
• Asparagus and drones: spotting weeds on the ridge before emergence, priceMore than 6,600 hectares of asparagus grown in France in 2024, on ridges that must stay scrupulously bare before the spears emerge. What a study on drone-based young-weed detection can bring to it. Method and 2026 prices (excl. VAT).
• Artichoke and drones in Brittany: mapping vigour and the harvest, price21,551 tonnes of artichokes harvested in France in 2024, 71% of it in Brittany — production that has been shrinking every year since 2016. What drone-based vigour and head-density mapping brings to a grower in the Léon. Method and 2026 prices (excl. VAT).
• Potatoes and drones: detecting late blight, mapping pre-harvest defoliation, price7.6 million tonnes of potatoes harvested in France in 2024, six in every ten hectares grown in Hauts-de-France. What a multispectral drone flight brings against late blight and for mapping pre-harvest defoliation. Method and 2026 prices (excl. VAT).
• Sunflower and drones: protecting the sowing from pigeons, counting the heads, price820,000 hectares of sunflowers grown in France in 2024: 91% of bird damage happens at sowing and emergence, not at harvest. What a drone brings against wood pigeons, and what a 2026 study documents on head counting. Method and 2026 prices (excl. VAT).
• Hazelnuts and drones: mapping young orchards and canopy vigour, price11,400 hectares of hazelnut orchards in France in 2024 (Agreste) — a sector expanding deliberately, yet held back by a harvest cut nearly in half by the nut weevil and the brown marmorated stink bug. What a drone brings to young orchards and vigour monitoring. Method and 2026 prices (excl. VAT).
• Walnut orchards by drone: AOP Périgord and Grenoble, water stress, yield estimation, priceFrance, Europe's top walnut producer (27,711 t in 2024, AOP Périgord and Grenoble). What a thermal and multispectral drone flight captures on irrigation and vigour in a walnut orchard, and its use for yield estimation. Method and 2026 prices (excl. VAT).
• Olive groves by drone: AOP Nyons, olive fly (Bactrocera oleae), vigour, priceFrance, around 50,000 ha of olive groves, nine AOP designations including Nyons and Vallée des Baux. What a multispectral and RGB drone flight brings against the olive fly and for tracking vigour after frost or alternate bearing. Method and 2026 prices (excl. VAT).
• Cherry orchards and drones: targeting thinning against Drosophila suzukii, netting, priceSince arriving in France in 2010, Drosophila suzukii lays eggs in healthy cherries before harvest — leading to a €4.7m compensation payout in 2016. What science says about canopy shade and humidity, and what a drone survey draws from it to target thinning and check exclusion netting. 2026 method and prices (excl. VAT).
• Racecourses and drones: mapping track vigour, rails and priceFrance has 233 racecourses, many run by small local racing societies with no track-measurement equipment. What a 2026 New Zealand study says about turf uniformity and injury risk, and what a drone vigour map draws from it for a racecourse. 2026 method and prices (excl. VAT).
• Saffron fields and drones: crocus flowering, weeds and priceLess than 100 kg of saffron produced each year in France, on plots of a few hundred square metres to one hectare. What two studies document about drone-based crocus flower detection, and what a dawn flight changes. Method and 2026 prices (excl. VAT).
• Digestate spreading: what a drone survey documents for an anaerobic digestion plan, 2026 priceDistances to third parties and watercourses, spreading uniformity, a dated record for the ICPE 2781 file: what an orthophoto or a multispectral survey add to an anaerobic digestion plant's digestate spreading plan, method and 2026 prices (excl. VAT).
• Almond orchards and drone: Xylella fastidiosa, young orchards and early frost, priceFrance is replanting almond orchards but still relies heavily on imports (around 1,000 t produced against more than 42,000 t imported yearly). What a drone survey adds against Xylella fastidiosa, an incurable quarantine bacterium, and for a young orchard being established. Method and 2026 prices (excl. VAT).
• Agricultural water reservoirs by drone: volume, siltation and water-law permits, priceHow a drone photogrammetry survey measures an agricultural water reservoir's real volume, tracks its siltation over time and feeds a water-law permit file. Dam classification, substitution reservoirs and 2026 prices (excl. VAT).
• Flax fibre by drone: mapping lodging, tracking field retting, priceHow a drone detects flax lodging after wind damage, and what repeated aerial monitoring can bring to judging field retting, in the world's leading production area. Method and 2026 prices (excl. VAT).
• Hops and hop yards by drone: vigour, downy mildew, multispectral mapping, price750 ha of hops in France in 2024 (+92% in ten years), 63% in Alsace (Bas-Rhin). What a multispectral flight captures on a canopy climbing 6-10 m — invisible from the row — for vigour and downy mildew monitoring. Method and 2026 prices (excl. VAT).