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wedrone.

wedrone / Agriculture

Over the arable field, nothing is sprayed.

Section 18 of the German Plant Protection Act prohibits applying plant protection products from aircraft. The exemption is applied for, and the statute steers it to steep-slope viticulture and the forest canopy. Everything an agricultural drone does without applying anything is untouched by it.

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The honest state

The aircraft can do more than it may.

Agricultural drones are sold above all on application: precise, able to work a slope, no soil compaction. Technically that is true. Legally, section 18(1) of the Plant Protection Act comes first, and the sentence is short: applying plant protection products from aircraft without a permit under subsection 2 is prohibited. That a drone is an aircraft follows from section 1(2) sentence 3 of the Aviation Act, under which unmanned aircraft also count as aircraft provided they are not operated for sport or recreation.

The exemption is real, but it is narrowly steered. Under section 18(2) the competent authority grants it on application, where there is no comparable alternative or where there are clear advantages for health or the natural balance — and the statute then says a permit should only be granted against harmful organisms in steep-slope viticulture and in the forest canopy. How narrow that is in practice can simply be counted: the list of the Bundesamt für Verbraucherschutz und Lebensmittelsicherheit of plant protection products approved for application by unmanned aircraft carries forty-six entries in its 11 May 2026 version, and all forty-six name viticulture as their field of use.

That is the bad news, and it belongs at the front. The good news is that the prohibition covers only the application of plant protection products. Sensing, searching, sowing and releasing beneficial organisms are legally something else — and that is exactly where the part of a drone programme that carries without a permitting question sits today.

The sequence

Six things settled before anyone buys.

VERB

The prohibition, and that it covers drones

Section 18(1) of the Plant Protection Act is short: applying plant protection products from aircraft without a permit under subsection 2 is prohibited. That a drone is caught by it does not come from plant protection law but from section 1(2) sentence 3 of the Aviation Act: unmanned aircraft also count as aircraft, provided they are not operated for sport or recreation. Commercial operation over a field is neither.

  • Section 18(1) PflSchG
  • Section 1(2) LuftVG
  • Commercial operation

AUSN

The exemption, and where the statute steers it

The permit under section 18(2) is granted by the competent authority on application, and only where there is no comparable alternative for an effective application or where there are clear advantages for health or the natural balance. Then comes the sentence that answers the question for arable farming: a permit should only be granted against harmful organisms in steep-slope viticulture and in the forest canopy. That is not an interpretation, it is the statutory text.

  • Application, not notification
  • Steep-slope viticulture
  • Forest canopy

MITT

The product needs its own approval

Even with the Land authority's permit the matter is not settled. Under section 18(3) it may only be granted for a product that is either approved for aerial use as part of its authorisation, or approved for it by the Bundesamt für Verbraucherschutz und Lebensmittelsicherheit under subsection 4 — in agreement with the Federal Institute for Risk Assessment, the Julius Kühn-Institut and the Umweltbundesamt. The BVL publishes that list in the Bundesanzeiger under subsection 6.

  • Section 18(3) and (4)
  • BVL decides
  • List in the Bundesanzeiger

LIST

What is on the list, and what is not

The BVL list of plant protection products approved for application by unmanned aircraft carries forty-six entries in its 11 May 2026 version. Every single one names viticulture as its field of use. No entry covers arable crops, orchards, hops or forestry. Anyone asking whether their case exists at all should read that list first — it answers the question faster than any sales conversation.

  • As at 11 May 2026
  • 46 entries
  • All viticulture

GERT

The equipment is part of the permit

The application conditions on that list describe the aircraft as well. NZ183 requires equipment that flies operator-defined routes automatically at a defined speed and height and switches the spray on and off by itself at defined positions. NZ184 requires spray equipment entered in the Julius Kühn-Institut list for steep-slope viticulture. Then come the distances: five metres to uninvolved third parties, thirty metres to areas intended for the general public, to residential plots and to private gardens.

  • NZ183 automatic flight
  • NZ184 JKI list
  • 5 m and 30 m

NUTZ

Beneficial organisms are not plant protection products

This is where the prohibition stops, and it is the most important sentence on this page. The Nationaler Aktionsplan Pflanzenschutz portal, published by the Bundesanstalt für Landwirtschaft und Ernährung, records that animal beneficials such as predatory mites, parasitic wasps or entomopathogenic nematodes require no authorisation. They are therefore not plant protection products, and section 18 does not reach them. Dropping Trichogramma capsules against the European corn borer is consequently outside the aerial application ban. What remains to be checked is nature conservation law: section 40(1) of the Federal Nature Conservation Act makes releasing animals into the wild subject to permission and exempts, in sentence 4 no. 2, their use for biological plant protection.

  • No authorisation needed
  • Section 18 does not apply
  • Check section 40 BNatSchG

Without application

What only senses needs no exemption.

How it works

Purpose. Route. Operator.

01

Purpose

First the question of what the aircraft is meant to do — not which one it should be. Sensing, applying and searching are three legally distinct undertakings, and only one of them runs into a prohibition. Separating the purpose cleanly often reveals that the real case is not the one the drone was marketed for.

02

Legal route

For application there are three routes side by side: the Land authority's permit under section 18(2), the BVL's approval of the product under subsections 3 and 4, and, untouched by both, aviation law under Regulation (EU) 2019/947. How the aviation route runs in detail we have written up elsewhere and do not repeat here. For sensing and searching the first two fall away.

03

Operator

Under section 18(5) the applicants include anyone applying plant protection products commercially in an agricultural, horticultural or forestry business. That is the holding or the contractor, not the integrator. Under section 59(1) implementation lies with the authority competent under Land law, and that is a different office in every Land. Who the applicator is, in which season and with what proof of competence, therefore belongs at the beginning and not in commissioning.

Note: wedrone is a systems integrator, not an aviation operator. wedrone holds no operational authorisations of its own and does not fly itself. wedrone holds no plant protection permit either and is not the applicator under the Plant Protection Act; the application under section 18(5) comes from the holding or the contractor. This page describes the legal frame and the decision sequence, not the agronomy: yield, saving and efficacy figures are deliberately absent.

Ground side

What works the field keeps working it.

Drilling and then mechanically hoeing the same rows, pushing feed back to the barrier at night, clearing the alley: that does not run on drones but on field and barn robots on the ground — with their own rulebook, their own safety case and their own failure modes. In most real undertakings that is the larger share, and the two are specified together.

werob agriculture: robots in the field and in the barn

FAQ

May we apply plant protection products with a drone?
On an arable field, as a rule no. Section 18(1) of the Plant Protection Act prohibits applying plant protection products from aircraft without a permit, and a commercially operated drone is an aircraft under section 1(2) sentence 3 of the Aviation Act. The permit under subsection 2 exists and is applied for at the competent Land authority, but the same subsection says it should only be granted against harmful organisms in steep-slope viticulture and in the forest canopy. For arable farming the honest answer is therefore no.
We have steep-slope vineyards. What do we need?
Three things side by side. First, the permit of the authority competent under Land law under section 18(2) — applied for by the holding or the contractor, not by us. Second, a product that is authorised for aerial application under section 18(3) or approved for it by the BVL; the BVL publishes that list in the Bundesanzeiger under subsection 6. Third, an aircraft whose spray equipment is entered in the Julius Kühn-Institut list, because application condition NZ184 requires it. Aviation law under Regulation (EU) 2019/947 comes on top and remains untouched by all of this.
How many products are actually available?
In its 11 May 2026 version the BVL list carries forty-six entries, and every single one names viticulture as its field of use. No entry covers arable crops, orchards, hops or forestry. That is the fastest way to test a plan: if your case is not on the list, it does not exist today, regardless of what the aircraft could technically do.
What about dropping Trichogramma against the corn borer?
That is outside the prohibition, and the distinction is clean. The Nationaler Aktionsplan Pflanzenschutz portal of the Bundesanstalt für Landwirtschaft und Ernährung records that animal beneficials such as predatory mites, parasitic wasps or entomopathogenic nematodes require no authorisation. They are therefore not plant protection products, and section 18 does not apply. What remains to be checked is nature conservation law: section 40(1) of the Federal Nature Conservation Act makes releasing animals into the wild subject to permission, but exempts their use for biological plant protection in sentence 4 no. 2.
So what is left that is worth doing?
More than the question suggests, because most of the value is not an application at all. Multispectral crop sensing is not the application of a plant protection product and runs under aviation law alone. So does searching a meadow before mowing. Sowing from the air is not the application of a plant protection product as long as the seed is untreated — treated seed falls under section 19 of the Plant Protection Act. And beneficial organisms, as above, never come under it in the first place.
What exactly does wedrone do here?
We structure the undertaking and bring in the operator who carries the aviation authorisation. wedrone does not fly and holds no operational authorisation. wedrone holds no plant protection permit either and is not the applicator: the application under section 18(5) comes from the holding or the contractor. What we can tell you in advance is whether your plan legally exists at all, and which part of it carries faster without any application.
And on the ground?
There the machine runs the field and the barn, under a different rulebook and with a different evidence trail. Drilling and mechanical hoeing, feed pushing and manure collection sit under the werob agriculture solution. In most real undertakings that is the larger share, and the two are specified together.

Further reading

Before the drone is bought.

Tell us what should fly, over which crop and for what purpose. We will tell you honestly whether the plan legally exists, which part of it carries without a permitting question, and where the ground is the better answer.

Discuss a plan info@werob.de