C-DRONE GUIDE · 5 SEPTEMBER 2026

Hazelnut orchards by drone: young-planting vigour, canopy mapping and targeted plant protection

In Brittany, the first hazelnut trees planted in 2020 in the Côtes-d'Armor are yielding their first substantial harvest this autumn 2026 — a symbol for a French sector trying to grow quickly after decades of import dependence. The cultivated area grew by 61.5% between 2013 and 2023, reaching around 7,900 hectares and 350 growers in 2025, driven by industrial demand tied almost entirely to a single buyer: Ferrero, for Nutella. But this expansion runs into a harsh sanitary reality: in 2024, the Unicoque cooperative, which brings together most of the historic growers in Lot-et-Garonne, harvested only 6,500 tonnes out of a potential 13,000, with the nut weevil and the brown marmorated stink bug making up to 30% of the harvest unfit for sale. Against this backdrop of fast growth and heavy pest pressure, with an authorised product range narrowed since France's ban on neonicotinoids, here is what a multispectral drone survey actually gives a grower or a cooperative, and what it does not replace.

Published on 5 September 2026, reviewed on 11 September 2026 — regulations in force as of September 2026.

A fast-growing sector, between its historic South-West base and new regions

French hazelnut production remains historically concentrated in the South-West, particularly in Lot-et-Garonne and Dordogne, around the Unicoque cooperative, which brings together most of the growers in that basin. But the map is shifting: in Brittany, about 100 hectares of hazelnut orchards have been planted since 2020 in the Côtes-d'Armor, with a first substantial harvest expected this autumn 2026 from the first five hectares brought into production. Nationally, the cultivated area grew by 61.5% between 2013 and 2023, reaching around 7,900 hectares and 350 growers in 2025.

This growth answers a highly concentrated industrial demand: Ferrero, the world's leading hazelnut processor for Nutella, is seeking a more sustainable and more local supply, while French production is thought to cover only a small share of national consumption today — the rest being imported, notably from Turkey and Italy. For a grower setting up or a cooperative bringing in new members, this expansion first means young plantations: one-to-five-year-old orchards, still establishing, where each tree's take and vigour directly determine when the orchard enters production a few years later.

What a multispectral flight reveals on a young orchard

An Italian team led by Alessandro Pagliai published in 2023, in the journal Remote Sensing, a method for the geometric characterisation of hazelnut trees in an intensive orchard from drone imagery: canopy radius, canopy height, total tree height and trunk height are measured tree by tree, with no ground intervention (see the study on Google Scholar). On a young orchard still establishing, this tree-by-tree reading has a direct value: spotting trees with delayed take or uneven growth before a gap becomes visible to the eye from the row, so a replacement or a localised input can be targeted.

A second team, led by Maurizio Morisio, published in 2025 in the journal Sensors a study of 185 hazelnut trees across two orchards in Piedmont (Italy), based on more than 4,000 multispectral images per tree: five vegetation indices (GNDVI, GCI, NDREI, NRI, GI) proved good predictors of the trees' physio-pathological condition, at around 65% accuracy (see the study on Google Scholar). Transposed to a French orchard, this index does not say "nut weevil" or "stink bug" — neither pest can be detected from the air, since their damage sits inside the shell — but it maps the zones of physiological stress that deserve a priority ground visit: trapping, visual counts, or a simple agronomic check. It is the same vigour-mapping logic detailed in our guide to variable-rate nitrogen by drone, applied here to a tree rather than an annual crop.

What the drone does not do: pests, spray decisions, but a lever on dose

Neither the nut weevil, which lays its eggs inside the developing nut, nor the brown marmorated stink bug, which pierces the shell to feed on the kernel, leaves any trace identifiable from an aerial flight: detecting them remains the job of pheromone trapping and ground counts, not imagery. The physio-pathological prediction model cited above also reaches only about 65% accuracy — a cue to guide monitoring, never a diagnosis that substitutes for the technician's or the cooperative's own agronomic observation.

Where the drone provides a concrete lever is on dose modulation: in a context where France's ban on neonicotinoids, and its exclusion of further substances beyond the EU baseline, narrow the range of products authorised against these pests, matching the volume of spray applied to the orchard's actual canopy volume — rather than a flat per-hectare assumption — becomes a way to use the products still authorised more efficiently. The drone-based geometric characterisation described above provides exactly that canopy-volume data, tree by tree or zone by zone.

Who commissions this kind of mission, method and 2026 prices

These flights are commissioned by independent growers setting up in the historic South-West or in new planting regions (Brittany in particular), by cooperatives such as Unicoque that centralise agronomic monitoring for their members, and by nurseries keen to document a young plantation's take before its establishment guarantee expires. Sensor choice follows the same trade-off as for other perennial crops: multispectral NDVI/NDRE for vigour and physiological stress, high-resolution RGB for a young orchard's canopy geometry — our guide on choosing between a multispectral and an RGB camera details that trade-off.

Ranges observed in France in 2026, excl. VAT:

These amounts cover the flight, index processing and map delivery; they exclude plant-protection trapping, agronomic advice, and the spraying decision itself, which remain the responsibility of the technician or the cooperative. For a grower, a cooperative or a nursery, request a quote stating the area, the orchard's age and the goal (establishment, vigour, dose modulation).

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