Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Farming robot kills 100k weeds per hour with lasers

freethink.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 483 posts

Re: Farming robot kills 100k weeds per hour with lasers

#11

Post by Cd00d »

frankzander wrote: post #3

Better farming methods and farmers will probably not need such and invention. I think about no drill farming. This "weed problem" comes from a farming not going with but against the nature. So it's thought that technology will solve problems which are no problems if methods to farm are optimized.

I think you're ignoring non-native species that can overwhelm an ecosystem. There's no going with nature with those "weeds".

Re: Farming robot kills 100k weeds per hour with lasers

#12

Post by jgwil2 »

frankzander wrote: post #3

Better farming methods and farmers will probably not need such and invention. I think about no drill farming. This "weed problem" comes from a farming not going with but against the nature. So it's thought that technology will solve problems which are no problems if methods to farm are optimized.

Surely there will always be wild plants (weeds) that compete with cultivated plants for sunlight, no?

Re: Farming robot kills 100k weeds per hour with lasers

#14

Post by ashtonbaker »

frankzander wrote: post #3

Better farming methods and farmers will probably not need such and invention. I think about no drill farming. This "weed problem" comes from a farming not going with but against the nature. So it's thought that technology will solve problems which are no problems if methods to farm are optimized.

I'm all about regenerative agriculture, permaculture, etc. But I've never seen a solution to weeds other than to spend a lot of manual labor removing them. Is there a method that reduces the number of weeds that appear, or reduces the need to remove them? I tend to think that solutions like this offer the possibility of the best of both worlds - automated (and therefore scalable) agriculture without the chemical dependency.

Re: Farming robot kills 100k weeds per hour with lasers

#16

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

black_puppydog wrote: post #10
le-mark wrote: post #6

Ah man, someone actually built my weed zapper with “weed/not weed” AI! https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ACmydtFDTGs

> The uploader has not made this video available in your country.

It's a vignette from an episode of Silicon Valley, in which one of the characters demonstrates an "awesome" app that can identify a hot dog, from the phone camera.

It does this well.

Unfortunately, the hot dog is the only thing that it can positively identify. Everything else is "Not A Hot Dog."

Re: Farming robot kills 100k weeds per hour with lasers

#17

Post by kstenerud »

frankzander wrote: post #3

Better farming methods and farmers will probably not need such and invention. I think about no drill farming. This "weed problem" comes from a farming not going with but against the nature. So it's thought that technology will solve problems which are no problems if methods to farm are optimized.

No-till farming still requires weed removal. This robot would potentially eliminate the needs for herbicides.

Re: Farming robot kills 100k weeds per hour with lasers

#18

Post by tpm »

frankzander wrote: post #3

Better farming methods and farmers will probably not need such and invention. I think about no drill farming. This "weed problem" comes from a farming not going with but against the nature. So it's thought that technology will solve problems which are no problems if methods to farm are optimized.

Weeds are any plants competing for resources with the current crop. They will have to managed some way, hopefully with less negative externalities than in the current industrial monocultural farming.

Re: Farming robot kills 100k weeds per hour with lasers

#20

Post by cmrdporcupine »

I want to see details on power source and energy usage. That's where I'm a bit skeptical. To do the 20 acres they're talking about you'd need one hell of a huge battery, assuming it's electric. Even just to move the thing. Then add power draw for the laser on as well.

Also seems odd to have it be something that is self-powered and autonomous rather than just something you pull behind a tractor on the three point hitch (where you could power off the PTO of the tractor). Seems excessively novel, given most farmers are already spending time going up and down the rows cultivating, etc. anyways. Adds to the cost, and complexity.

Post reply on HN