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Robot treats 500k plants per hour with 95% less chemicals [video]

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Re: Robot treats 500k plants per hour with 95% less chemicals [video]

#3

Love these types of advances though I wonder if weeds and pests will adapt to outwit the robot or if our ability to adapt automation to such changes simply will always/usually be too rapid for nature to keep up.

Pests will adapt to physical pest control like fire or crop rotation by timing their life cycles to avoid it. Robots aren't any different in that regard, if used without care pests could hypothetically adapt to their usage.

The key to preventing this kind of adaptation is multiple modes of action. Robots do offer that ability because they can be used to both physically remove pests, and also chemically treat pests like in the video.

If you have two to three robust modes of action, you can basically prevent resistance from happening entirely.

Re: Robot treats 500k plants per hour with 95% less chemicals [video]

#4

Love these types of advances though I wonder if weeds and pests will adapt to outwit the robot or if our ability to adapt automation to such changes simply will always/usually be too rapid for nature to keep up.

Firmware updates happen a lot faster than evolution. I personally like the laser one and mechanical weeders

Re: Robot treats 500k plants per hour with 95% less chemicals [video]

#6

Weeds are the enemy /s But really, the whole idea of having perfectly manicured fields like that with no sign of any weeds around seems like the real problem to me. Zero biodiversity…we wonder where the insects are going ?

Maybe it's monocrops that are problematic.

Re: Robot treats 500k plants per hour with 95% less chemicals [video]

#7

Weeds are the enemy /s But really, the whole idea of having perfectly manicured fields like that with no sign of any weeds around seems like the real problem to me. Zero biodiversity…we wonder where the insects are going ?

Maybe it's monocrops that are problematic.

I'm not saying either of you are wrong but the we'll be needing the robots to do it other ways or 10x as many farmers. It takes a ton of labor to deal with weeds and other issues in a more sustainable way

Re: Robot treats 500k plants per hour with 95% less chemicals [video]

#9
post #4

Love these types of advances though I wonder if weeds and pests will adapt to outwit the robot or if our ability to adapt automation to such changes simply will always/usually be too rapid for nature to keep up.

Firmware updates happen a lot faster than evolution. I personally like the laser one and mechanical weeders

Evolution might hijack the firmware update process now.

Re: Robot treats 500k plants per hour with 95% less chemicals [video]

#10

Weeds are the enemy /s But really, the whole idea of having perfectly manicured fields like that with no sign of any weeds around seems like the real problem to me. Zero biodiversity…we wonder where the insects are going ?

As the video points out (toward the end), since these robots recognize and work on each individual plant, they are much more able to deal with more biodiversity than our current methods, which can only scale for monocrops.
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