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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]

#311

Post by quixoticelixer- »

cwkoss wrote: post #306
quixoticelixer- wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Weeds adapting to look like non-weeds is highly plausible, IMO. It's not highly plausible. It would take a lot of generations and a lot of mutations for this to happen.

Boquila trifoliolata can do it within a single generation. Most weeds don't have this capability currently, but a strong selective pressure could make it happen pretty quick with the right lucky mutations.

No strong selective pressure could not make it happen "pretty quick" it's very complicated behavior that would take a very long time to appear

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

#312

Post by quixoticelixer- »

bitL wrote: post #242
quixoticelixer- wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you think currently happens in most fields? I'll give you a hint. They dont just let weeds grow.

It's already a problem, I agree. Another big problem is the increasing measurable presence of those chemicals in pastry/bread/flour these days, with unknown long-term effects.

The levels in most flour etc is in the parts per billion. The long term effects are already pretty well known. It is not an issue

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

#313

Post by whiplash451 »

travisgriggs wrote: post #175
8n4vidtmkvmk wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what if we make them bigger than insects but still relatively small? just an arm on a track. heck, we can put the energy in the track too. boom, no battery.

There are some interesting things being done with pivot spans. Hummingbird runs nozzles back and forth on rails suspended from each pivot span. But they’re difficult to keep running. Ag is hard. It’s dusty. The weather can be brutal. Stuff gets left out year round. The turnover is high. Schedules are dynamic and unforgiving (when the weather turns, you have to adapt your whole operation). There’s not a lot of highly…

I think you meant the MTBF goes down.

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

#314

Post by snapplebobapple »

robotresearcher wrote: post #104
mastazi wrote: post #60

This is an improvement within the current paradigm of "big ag", but IMHO tech is opening the possibility of a completely different way of doing things. For example, this comment which is below the linked video imagines a robot-maintained food forest, I think it's on point because I, too, believe that the future is swarms of small robots rather than a few big tractors: > Imagine, a few years down the line, applying th…

> the future is swarms of small robots A key problem with small autonomous robots is their energy supply and mass. Batteries have low energy density. Actuators have bad power to weight ratios too. Living things are enormously more efficient. So much so that the intuition apparently offered by watching animals usually does not apply. This is extremely true for swarm robotics, inspired by ants, termites, etc. Swarm cri…

Not to mention by making it pulled by tractor you get something that complements the existing o̶l̶i̶g̶o̶p̶o̶l̶i̶s̶t̶s̶ large players so it's more like you can do something with them to scale yourself out rather than compete against them to scale yourself out. It's much smarter making something tractor pulled from a business economics perspective, not just from a physics perspective.

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

#315

Post by selcuka »

bluGill wrote: post #291
selcuka wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spray is cheaper, and when you can precisely target the weeds you can use less harmful chemicals, such as acetic acid or even hot water.

acetic acid is more harmful than the chemicals that farmers are using, plus it is only effective in much larger quantities. Sure we use it in cooking, but that doesn't mean it is safe. Look up the SDS for various chemicals, it can be very eye opening. Some common household stuff is very dangerous.

True. What I meant was it's not a big deal if a bit of acetic acid touches my lettuce in the field. I will add that before I consume it anyway.

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

#316

Post by namlem »

jay_kyburz wrote: post #168
robotresearcher wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the future is swarms of small robots A key problem with small autonomous robots is their energy supply and mass. Batteries have low energy density. Actuators have bad power to weight ratios too. Living things are enormously more efficient. So much so that the intuition apparently offered by watching animals usually does not apply. This is extremely true for swarm robotics, inspired by ants, termites, etc. Swarm cri…

Yeah, instead of a swarm you could have one gigantic arm that can reach anywhere.

Just piggyback off of center-pivot irrigation arms. Attach little arms to it that destroy weeds and apply pesticides

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

#317

Post by ForrestN »

lstodd wrote: post #213
Ancalagon wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did not assume the smaller drones would be simpler than the tractor. In fact I'd expect them to be similarly if not more complex.

More complex for sure. If you watched the video, there's still a tractor. And instead of a simple plastic tank, it hauls a shitton of electronics. Now, the video is shot in a shiny nice weather day. Now imagine how would it perform if it's raining since last Tuesday.

To be clear: we were talking about a "food forest," not the kind of row-based farm tractor in the video. I certainly agree that the kind of tractor in the video is simpler than the swarm units would be. But a giant tractor that can navigate a forest is a different matter entirely, no?

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

#318

Post by Arn_Thor »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #279
Arn_Thor wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The environmental argument is huge, though. And there must be some monetary value in being able to sell your product as X% more environmentally friendly?

The private farmer is operating on thin margins. They are ecologists to be sure; their soil is their life. But no, not just to get some enviro-theatre stamp, they'll pay $0 for that. And there's a lot of FUD about ag chemicals. Check rivers - the chemical problems are downstream from cities, where an urban dweller can dump as much whatever on their lawn as they like (and they do). While ag is restricted and regulated…

No, the farmer is obviously not going to do this "just because". But if there's a market for organic produce sold to consumers at a markup, why wouldn't there be a market for something like this?

Ag is regulated, for sure (and for good reason!), but it's still a huge polluter. And yes, let's regulate domestic chemical use while we're at it!

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

#319

Post by madacol »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #307
madacol wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you look at the progress in pesticide free organic farming and indoor/vertical farming By what measure is vertical farming more efficient?. I've heard the contrary regarding green house gas emissions, it is still less efficient in most crops, it consumes too much power and that overcompensates any efficiency gained in other areas It's interesting that this conclusion can change drastically if electricity becomes…

I don't know what you've heard and where you've heard it but there is generally a lot of misinformation floating around and most of it is being sponsored by lobbies with an agenda to keep the oil and gas companies going. So, I would suggest not taking any of that at face value. Including what you hear in threads like this or from me. Vertical farms are essentially closed systems where nutrients, energy and some water…

> They are climate controlled environments where light is provided via grow lights

Solar's efficiency is below 50% [https://www.nrel.gov/pv/cell-efficiency.html]. Considering that, I'd guess for each m² of solar panel deployed, you'll get You can argue that solar panels can be deployed in non-agricultural surfaces, and that's true, that allows to grow things where it was not possible before. But I'm not convinced that vertical farming is more efficient than horizontal on very important metrics like cost and GHG emissions

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

#320

Post by JoeAltmaier »

Arn_Thor wrote: post #318
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The private farmer is operating on thin margins. They are ecologists to be sure; their soil is their life. But no, not just to get some enviro-theatre stamp, they'll pay $0 for that. And there's a lot of FUD about ag chemicals. Check rivers - the chemical problems are downstream from cities, where an urban dweller can dump as much whatever on their lawn as they like (and they do). While ag is restricted and regulated…

No, the farmer is obviously not going to do this "just because". But if there's a market for organic produce sold to consumers at a markup, why wouldn't there be a market for something like this? Ag is regulated, for sure (and for good reason!), but it's still a huge polluter. And yes, let's regulate domestic chemical use while we're at it!

Oh it's regulate (domestic). Long paragraph on every bottle of weedkiller etc.

You ever read that? Farmers do. But no, residential customers just pull the trigger until the weed starts to curl or whatever, and then the sprinkler runs and it all goes down to the creek.

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