DailyDirt: Robots For Farming

Robots are perfect for tedious and boring tasks, and they seem to be well-suited for the repetitive labor of farming. More and more robots are getting into the farming industry, with the potential to displace a lot of human labor. It might take some time before robots are growing a significant portion of our food supply, but farming technology could solve a lot of problems (and create a few more labor problems as well). Here are just a few more farming robots that might take over our farms.

• A "Lettuce Bot" made by Blue River Technology can recognize the difference between weeds and budding lettuce. This robot could improve yields for crops without using pesticides, but it would have to be re-trained for each new crop. [url]
• Hydroponic lettuce farms could be automated with indoor fields maintained by robots. Hortiplan is testing a hydroponic farm in Belgium, and hopefully, world hunger can be solved eating lettuce...? [url]
• Remote controlled helicopters can spray herbicides and pesticides more efficiently, and the RMAX helicopter has been used in Japanese rice fields for 20 years. The same mini-helicopter is being tested in a Napa vineyard, after obtaining FAA clearance to operate at a maximum altitude of 20 feet. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: agriculture, ai, farming, harvest, helicopters, hydroponic, image recognition, lettuce, pesticides, rmax, robots, weeds
Companies: blue river technology, hortiplan