Fowler entrepreneur’s agriculture drone company lifting off
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As crops begin to going into fields across Indiana, business is flourishing for the state’s first licensed drone spraying contractor.
Albertson Drone Service LLC is now starting its sixth year of business and fifth growing season. The company uses drones to provide crop health mapping, pesticide spraying, insect control and other services.
“I thought I’d give my business, Albertson Drone Service, a go as a full-time thing for maybe a year or so and just see how it went,” owner and operator Kyle Albertson said. “Every year, we have basically doubled what we did the previous year…it does feel kind of surreal.”
Albertson explained the benefits of using drones for crop spraying to Inside INdiana Business.
Albertson spent time in the FFA and 4-H before attending Purdue University. During his sophomore year at Purdue, he started thinking about building a business.
“I always wanted to work in agriculture; that’s what I grew up around. That’s the most opportunity around here where I live, and I love it here,” he said. “I live in Benton County; it’s corn, soybeans and livestock.”
Albertson enjoyed photography and began searching for ways to make drones more useful. After connecting with a drone dealer during his junior year, he decided to start the ag-tech company after graduating with an agribusiness degree.
“We can spray roughly 30 to 40 acres an hour per drone…we don’t have to worry about trees, we don’t have to worry about power lines [and] things like that. We can get all the way up to the road or up next to the trees,” Albertson said. “A couple hundred feet all around the edge of the field doesn’t seem like that much, but that that adds up pretty quick. It might be 20 acres of that field that you wouldn’t be able to get sprayed if not using your drone.”
Albertson Drone Service will welcome two interns from Purdue this summer and has a goal of working on 10,000 acres of crops, about double what the company was able to cover in 2024.