Drone Tech Designed to Boost Cannabis Production

The Canadian cannabis software specialist ZenaPay will be carrying out a beta test of its drone-based plant tracking software in conjunction with GreenHeartCBD. ZenaPay’s highly unique program is designed specifically for enterprise-level cannabis operations, and leverages AI to help customers monitor the lifecycles of their plants from seed up until the point of sale.

GreenHeart, meanwhile, is an Irish company that grows hemp that will be used to produce CBD oil, and has plants at various stages of growth spread across 100 acres of land. The beta test is scheduled to begin in August and will run for an unspecified number of weeks.

“We believe that Artificial Intelligence and our facial recognition technology are the next technologies to positively impact agriculture production,” said ZenaPay CEO Shaun Passley. “This agreement will demonstrate the efficiency gained from tracking plant growth from seed to harvest.”

ZenaPay plans to coordinate additional beta tests in a wider range of environments, and will start selling its technology to customers once those tests are complete. The company’s facial recognition technology would most likely be used in its proposed compliance management and auditing software for distributors and government inspectors, but that compliance platform is still under development.

ZenaPay is not the first company to use drones to boost agricultural growth, although it does seem to be the first to deploy that technology exclusively for cannabis. Olea recently released a navigation system that gives drones better situational awareness, while Ericsson has extolled the benefits of 5G and IoT connectivity for farmers in rural areas.