Smart Tech
Crop Scouting Gets a High-Tech Upgrade with Landus’ SkyScout
August 6, 2025 
This past April, Landus Cooperative, a CropLife 100 ag retailer headquartered in Des Moines, IA, introduced its new SkyScout to the industry. SkyScout uses a new drone and fixed-wing scouting tool with an aerial technology platform. According to the company, the platform combines artificial intelligence (AI) technology and predictive analytics to deliver timely and accurate insights into crop health so grower-customers can react quickly to disruptions and make better data-driven decisions.
“SkyScout gives farmers and growers an unprecedented advantage when it comes to accuracy and planning,” says Sam Caton, Interim CEO and Executive Vice President of Sales at Landus. “Growers are generally within 10% when predicting their yield. SkyScout can reduce that variability by 50%.”
Using fixed-wing and drone scouting, SkyScout provides grower-customers with high-resolution aerial images of their fields every 12 days. The platform immediately alerts users to critical issues such as low emergence, weed pressure, crop stress, nutrient deficiencies, and disease. According to the company, SkyScout helps grower-customers optimize seed and tillage choices, fine-tune nitrogen and fertilizer applications, and identify hidden yield loss, translating technical data into practical decisions that directly impact profitability.
Providing Better Information
According to Andy Unruh, Director of LANDWERX, IT, & Logistics at Landus, SkyScout was launched to give growers a clearer, real-time view of what’s happening across every acre — helping them make informed decisions throughout the season.
SkyScout was launched to give growers a clearer, real-time view of what’s happening across every acre — helping them make informed decisions throughout the season.
“At Landus, we saw a gap: Growers were collecting more machine-generated data than ever before, but it wasn’t translating into timely, actionable insights,” says Unruh. “SkyScout provides high-resolution aerial scans that detect emergence issues, weed pressure, nutrient deficiencies, and crop stress — with precision down to a tenth of an acre.”
In part, adds Unruh, the inspiration for SkyScout came from today’s computer-driven automobile industry.
“A car tells you when a tire needs air or oil is running low,” he says. “These early warnings help people fix problems before they get worse. Growers deserve that same kind of proactive intelligence in their fields. That’s what SkyScout delivers: A simple, powerful platform that integrates with other tools and creates a shared, real-time picture that growers and their trusted advisors can act on together to drive return on investment per acre.”
Furthermore, Unruh emphasizes, Landus’ team will be there to help sort through all this information for grower-customers.
“One concern we heard early on from growers was the fear of being overwhelmed by data without guidance,” he says. “That’s why we’ve embedded agronomy expertise into every step of the process. Every image is reviewed by our in-house team of Landus agronomists, who turn raw data into clear, field-specific recommendations.”
With SkyScout now launched, Unruh says Landus is working on a few new options to help improve the platform. Still, in his mind, SkyScout is just another part of the evolution that agriculture has been undertaking since the start of the 21st century.
“The history of farming is marked by milestone advancements,” he says. “We’re no longer planting with the same six-row planters our grandparents used — from 48-row planters to self-driving harvesters, farmers have adopted new technology to increase efficiency and crop scouting is no different. Landus believes SkyScout is the next step forward: Using AI to surface field-level insights quickly and precisely, so growers can focus on the right acre at the right time.”
Ultimately, says Unruh, Landus will use multiple criteria to judge the success of the SkyScout effort.
“When it comes to measuring success, acres enrolled and fields scanned matter, but what matters more are the results,” he says. “Are farmers catching issues earlier? Using inputs more efficiently? Increasing yield potential while managing risk? That’s the real impact.”
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