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Autonomous Robots Plant, Tend, and Harvest Entire Crop of Barley

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Re: Autonomous Robots Plant, Tend, and Harvest Entire Crop of Barley

#101

Post by kuschku »

setr wrote: post #42
chiefofgxbxl wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What would be really cool is automating crops that still require lots of manual labor. Like vegetables. That's the reason they are still so expensive. Same deal with coffee beans, which contributes to their higher price. The coffee beans do not ripen at the same time, so they must be hand-picked so the worker can identify which ones are ready. Lots of manual labor. And with coffee being so widely consumed, savings…

Why would starbucks be against lowered supply prices? Either the whole market drops in price and starbucks keeps the same profit margin but lowers actual price, or starbucks just sells the same price but now with higher margins than before

Because Starbucks has found a carefully balanced point between being affordable enough that it has mainstream appeal, and expensive enough that it seems premium.

Any change, absolute or relative, would reduce their margin.

Re: Autonomous Robots Plant, Tend, and Harvest Entire Crop of Barley

#102

Post by mabbo »

camillomiller wrote: post #98

I have an acquaintance who works for a huge manufacturer of agricultural machinery. His stories about adventurous technicians who have to parachute into remote Australian farm lands to repair a stuck self-driving combine are always nice to hear.

Literally parachute?

Re: Autonomous Robots Plant, Tend, and Harvest Entire Crop of Barley

#103

Post by dejv »

dejv wrote: post #74
joncp wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine, though, a time when the automation reaches a stage where all weeding and most insect killing can be done mechanically with a robot instead of chemically with pesticides. That will be a huge boon for the environment and for farmers' bottom lines.

Insects are never gonna be killed mechanically, those are too small and too many in count. Modern trend is to use biological controll: you "plant" organism that eat them or eat their eggs.

Just to expand on my comment, biological control is quite varied, but the main theme is selectivity: you don't want to destroy all the insects or butterflies, just those who do harm to your produce.

So you basically have couple of forms, either some microbes, viruses or some form of insects that eat on just one type of insect or of insect class. Another main form is pheromone confusion thingies: you put them in your orchard/vineyard/market garden and it make hard for males of your target pest to find female and procreate.

Re: Autonomous Robots Plant, Tend, and Harvest Entire Crop of Barley

#104

Post by Dylanfm »

thomas_howland wrote: post #51
shanev wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are destroying topsoil at an alarming rate due to industrial farming that we may have no choice but to go this route.

We are absolutely not. Productive farmland in the USA is fairly expensive and farmers are extremely interested in preserving its value. Most "destroyed" topsoil is due to eg suburban developments spreading into former agricultural areas, but it's still minimal in the grand scheme of things.

Development of arable land is a problem, but our agricultural practices are a major one. I think shanev is speaking about the effects of modern agriculture on top soil. We should prioritise the _creation_ of soil. Instead, top soil is being degraded and then lost though erosion. There are other issues, such as the planting of monocultures, overuse of nitrogen fertilizers and so on.

As climate change brings us longer droughts and larger downpours, we should be farming in ways that build top soil for more resilient farmland.

(edit - adding link to http://www.fao.org/docrep/t0389e/t0389e02.htm)

Re: Autonomous Robots Plant, Tend, and Harvest Entire Crop of Barley

#105

Post by stephengillie »

thomas_howland wrote: post #4

The amount of labor involved in grain crops like barley per dollar of output is minimal already - the guy running the tractor/combine/etc is mostly making sure nothing breaks and keeping an eye on things (which is important when you're operating $N00,000 worth of heavy equipment on open ground). You do need guys, however, for when things do go wrong, and for all the other farm tasks (equipment maintenance, fencing, m…

This is essentially the argument against automation - that a human is so versatile, we can be "programmed" (convinced, paid, trained, etc.) to perform many disparate tasks. Our exception handling is so robust (what happens if it floods?) that it's a problem solving engine unto itself. As with a grocery store, the self-check machines can't sweep the floor or stock shelves when business is slow.

Re: Autonomous Robots Plant, Tend, and Harvest Entire Crop of Barley

#106

Post by RoboticsAU »

reachtarunhere wrote: post #100
robotresearcher wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Peter Corke and his huge team at QUT are doing great stuff in this area. They have spot-spraying robots, that zap only weeds and fertilize only crops, and also a great device that just mechanically smashes up weeds one-by-one. Peter has an admirable ability to choose projects and deliver the goods on them. Robotics needs more like him. Interview with Corke on this subject: http://robohub.org/robots-zero-tillage-robot…

Peter Corke is an amazing guy. Loved his MOOC. Highly recommended if you are just curious about robotics. MATLAB is a sad aspect of it though.

Peter Corke launched a new site recently, which is based on his MOOC: https://robotacademy.net.au/

He outlines the reasons why they shifted away from MOOCs in the Robots Podcast episode #239.

I recently made a site too, for anybody interested in robotics/AI: http://roboticsaustralia.org

Re: Autonomous Robots Plant, Tend, and Harvest Entire Crop of Barley

#107

Post by philh »

kuschku wrote: post #101
setr wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would starbucks be against lowered supply prices? Either the whole market drops in price and starbucks keeps the same profit margin but lowers actual price, or starbucks just sells the same price but now with higher margins than before

Because Starbucks has found a carefully balanced point between being affordable enough that it has mainstream appeal, and expensive enough that it seems premium. Any change, absolute or relative, would reduce their margin.

Do you claim that the current price of coffee beans is the price that happens to maximise Starbucks' profits? (This seems implausible to me, unless Starbucks has fairly strong control over the price of coffee beans.)

Or is your claim more narrow than that?

Re: Autonomous Robots Plant, Tend, and Harvest Entire Crop of Barley

#108

Post by shanev »

Dylanfm wrote: post #104
thomas_howland wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are absolutely not. Productive farmland in the USA is fairly expensive and farmers are extremely interested in preserving its value. Most "destroyed" topsoil is due to eg suburban developments spreading into former agricultural areas, but it's still minimal in the grand scheme of things.

Development of arable land is a problem, but our agricultural practices are a major one. I think shanev is speaking about the effects of modern agriculture on top soil. We should prioritise the _creation_ of soil. Instead, top soil is being degraded and then lost though erosion. There are other issues, such as the planting of monocultures, overuse of nitrogen fertilizers and so on. As climate change brings us longer…

Yes this is exactly what I was getting at. Thanks for putting it more eloquently than I did. I’m just used to getting downvoted anytime I talk about monoculture farming, soil, and climate change so I don’t put effort into it anymore.

I think the pro-GMO crowd thinks talking about sustainable farming is anti-science when it actually involves more science at a macro level to understand the effects of synthetic monoculture farming on soil, and it’s effects on climate change.

Re: Autonomous Robots Plant, Tend, and Harvest Entire Crop of Barley

#109

Post by Tade0 »

justonepost wrote: post #96
Tade0 wrote: post #95

> Moonshots like this are understandably expensive, though, and since a huge chunk of that money went to capital costs (like buying a tractor and a harvester), the next crop will be vastly cheaper. They would get a more accurate number if they calculated how much these machines depreciated over that period instead of just throwing in their total cost.

Not really, they should theoretically handle a lot more than a hectare with these things.

That's sort of the point I was making. The machines were barely used, so they should still be worth a lot.

Re: Autonomous Robots Plant, Tend, and Harvest Entire Crop of Barley

#110

Post by randomdata »

dmurray wrote: post #87
randomdata wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> especially if the extra $360 per tonne would allow smaller farms I would expect the opposite. Wheat was worth a record-high ~$380/tonne back in 2008 and what happened was that the biggest farmers went spend-crazy on land, preventing the existing small farms from growing, and completely pushing thoughts of any new farm operations right out the window. We're still suffering the effects of that as price of land has ye…

> Other reports indicate that farm jobs have one of the fastest growing wages in the country (which I realize technically invalidates there being a shortage, but labour shortage has come to mean something other than shortage). Isn't that the exact definition of shortage? Prices rise because demand excess supply at the previous price.

A shortage is technically defined as a situation where price cannot rise, such as the government imposing a price ceiling, preventing the price from reaching equilibrium. As long as price is able to rise, demand will wane with the rising price, and thus the supply will ultimately meet the needs of the demand.

That price is rising should invalidate the idea of a shortage, but labour shortage seems to have come to mean a situation where an employer has made their desire to hire known, but received no suitable applicants.

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