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Criminals Using Drones To Find Cannabis Farms and Steal Crops
schwit1 (797399) writes "There has been a huge surge in the number of hidden cannabis farms across Halesowen, Cradley Heath and Oldbury, towns on the outskirts of rural Shropshire some seven miles from central Birmingham. They require hydroponic lights for the marijuana plants to grow – and the huge amounts of excess heat given off make them easily spottable for a would-be criminal with a drone carrying infrared cameras. One such man says that after finding a property with a cannabis farm he and his crew either burgle or 'tax' the victim."
In the old days, criminals would just follow others out or use dogs trained to sniff out other peoples grow ops in some farmers field, woods/back wood lot/etc. They're just going hi-tech, nothing to see in that sense.
Om, nomnomnom...
Many growers have been doing this for years. Its not a big deal. You dig out a big hole in the ground, line it with concrete, throw a roof on it, and then pile dirt on top of the roof. No infrared signature.
You can even put it under your house or another greenhouse that has vegetables and flowers. If anyone quizzes you about all the materials you say its for that.
There is an issue with the smell. Nothing you can really do about dogs besides creating a hermetically sealed compartment that has very serious airfilters. Which is sort of the Walter White solution.
Anyway, build underground... its easy and works.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Halesowen? Cradley Heath? Oldbury? Shropshire? Where are these towns, Middle Earth?
Where do you think Tolkien stole the names from? Though he should've avoided getting creative with "Mordor" and stuck with Wolverhampton.
"Little does he know, but there is no 'I' in 'Idiot'!"
My sister-in-law works developing LED lamps. She's a biologist, was headhunted from the university after her PhD (that was about how different types of UV light affect plant growth) by some engineers. Basically what she does is she tests various configurations of LED lights and fixtures, checks how they affect plant growth, tells the engineers to build "that one". Rinse and repeat.
What she's told me, and I have no reason to doubt this as she's not trying to sell me anything (and the fact that she's very proud of her work ethics), they're getting very much better results than with HIDs. With much less power consumption, obviously. Now, they specifically haven't tested cannabis, but I have a hard time believing the light requirements would be so drastically different than from other very light-needy plants.
The thing is though, they're not yet selling to consumers, just to large commercial greenhouses. The company is still early stages. And she's been unwilling to loan me a unit for test purposes, dammit ;) But I'm willing to bet in a few years HIDs will no longer be the choice, at least when it comes to power consumption and heat; I expect the lights will be quite pricey, at least initially.