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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

#141

Post by Alex3917 »

prawn wrote: post #138
Alex3917 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If anyone wants to eat thistles, I'll give those away. How do they actually taste? I know they're in the artichoke family, but I've never actually dug one up or whatever.

Never tried them, but they are a painful weed here, grow quickly and seed very easily. We used to give the seed heads to our canary once upon a time, but currently have hundreds of thistles to zero canaries. Perhaps if they could be blended and used as a base for bread or cakes, but I have no idea if they're safe in large quantities.

> I have no idea if they're safe in large quantities.

Good point, for most foraged stuff you definitely don't want it to make up more than a certain percentage of your diet. Not only because of the plants themselves, but also because it's hard to know how much heavy metals and other toxins they absorb. You should be fine treating it as a normal vegetable because it's known to be safe in those quantities, I just wouldn't eat it every meal for a week.

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

#142

Post by njarboe »

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.

If you had a system that could target such small things, lasers might work.

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

#143

Post by jsilence »

randomdata wrote: post #16
oh_sigh wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, but that is because the farmers have access to huge fields which let them deploy their equipment efficiently. Autonomous farming would let you theoretically use more marginal lands which are not currently suitable for manual farming.

I expect you are suggesting that small parcels of land that are far away from large fields are not worth the travel expenses? I'm not sure that robots really improve on that, as fuel, wear and tear, etc. going field to field remain a big detractor. There are plenty of farmers who do it for fun. They'd be happy to spend the time in the machine if labour costs were the only reason to avoid those fields. I already farm…

Also leaving an expensive robot on a small remote plot might not be a good idea because of theft.

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

#144

Post by jsilence »

Reason077 wrote: post #111

What I really need is an autonomous slug-killing robot on my allotment. Everything else I can handle. I've tried most existing controls, short of toxic Metaldehyde pellets, with little effect on the little buggers. I estimate they destroyed over 50% of my (potential) crop this year, which makes you wonder how much toxic stuff goes on all those perfect field-grown cabbages etc you see in supermarkets...

You might try mulching with woodchips to create a habitat for slug eating beetles. The slug problem might intermediately become worse while the natural balance is establishing.

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

#145

Post by imtringued »

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…

There is still the time advantage. Having two autonomous tractors is twice as fast as operating one by hand.

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

#146

Post by lightedman »

randomdata wrote: post #117
lightedman wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I have always wondered who are these farmers in the dirt in the early morning?" Southern California vineyards, for one. Come work in 100+F heat at 9:30AM.

I'm not sure that vinyards really match the description of the grain farmer in the article. But maybe I read too into their description. Still, there is no set pattern of farmer behaviour. It is interesting that the idea of get up early has become so pervasive.

"It is interesting that the idea of get up early has become so pervasive."

Early to bed and early to rise. Also, our ancestors used to run more polyphasic sleep cycling.

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

#147

Post by lightedman »

njarboe wrote: post #78
lightedman wrote: post #68

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. " Why bother with that when we already have controlled facilities where pests simply can't gain a foot hold in the first place, making that labor totally unnecessary?

Greenhouse the entire mid-west? With big enough structures to run tractors? Not sure the ROI is going to work out.

I don't think you understand how indoor vertical farming works. In 1/8 of an acre you can produce an entire acre of crops, utilizing upwards of 99% less resources.

To boot, you don't even need tractors to harvest. You can just pull the entire tray yourself once the NFT solution's drained from the channel.

I can take 1/8th of an acre of land, and produce a full acre of wheatgrass in two weeks and harvest it myself with no mechanical methods required in less than a couple of hours.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZTikdxj8AI

I was doing this 20 years ago in high school horticultural science class.

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

#148

Post by mads »

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.

That sounds like an awesome job.

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

#149

Post by otempomores »

randomdata wrote: post #120
mikekchar wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to admit that even though I posted what I did, I don't really understand the dynamics of the situation. I know the result I would prefer, but I have no idea how to get there. I'm originally from Canada and my family benefited greatly from the boom cycles of farm land prices. Now I'm living in Japan where it is illegal to sell farm land. I find the different dynamics extremely interesting, but as I am not a far…

> there are very few young farmers. Of my neighbours, I think there is one guy who is about 40 and everybody else is well over 60. That is interesting, because the exact opposite is true of my neighbours. Growing up, there were eight farm families clustered fairly close together. In all but one of those cases, the next generation (all still under 40) have become heavily involved with, if not completely taken over, th…

Nobody ever believed that a free market exists when it comes to produce? Fanatics of all directions know that there power ends the day a food riot occurs. Which is one of the reasons why nobody will become farmer again abd it gets outsourced to the cheapest country willing to fake health and environment labels.
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