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Agricultural drones are transforming rice farming in the Mekong River delta

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Re: Agricultural drones are transforming rice farming in the Mekong River delta

#141

Post by ragnaruss »

majoe wrote: post #80

Slightly related, but off-topic. It's astonishing how high-tech agriculture has become without the general public noticing much of it. I recently had a longer talk with my uncle, who is a farmer in South Germany, where he told me about the newish technology he is using: - Milking robots: the process is entirely automated, the cows basically go inside the milking stations by themselves. - His newer tractors are all dr…

I know quite a few people in the industry, and some near the top of big players and the common thing I've heard said is "We have so much data on such a granular level, we don't even know how to exploit most of it".

Re: Agricultural drones are transforming rice farming in the Mekong River delta

#142

Post by dukeyukey »

majoe wrote: post #80

Slightly related, but off-topic. It's astonishing how high-tech agriculture has become without the general public noticing much of it. I recently had a longer talk with my uncle, who is a farmer in South Germany, where he told me about the newish technology he is using: - Milking robots: the process is entirely automated, the cows basically go inside the milking stations by themselves. - His newer tractors are all dr…

Is there anything happening with self-driving tractors? I'd expect that in the absence of speed and most of the typical hazards cars on the roads face, when doing pretty rote stuff like spraying, harvesting row crops, or tilling a field we'd be able to automate it pretty easily.

Re: Agricultural drones are transforming rice farming in the Mekong River delta

#143

Post by dukeyukey »

zo1 wrote: post #94
gumby wrote: post #32

This is so great. My long term dream is that robotics take over farming, individually plucking each weed or weevil, and metering just the right amount of water for each individual plant, so that all the crops are organic. Most of the chemicals (yes, including nitrogen fertilizers) offset labor, so when the labor is free we shouldn’t need them. And people won’t have to spend their lives in stoop-back work or exposed t…

I disagree. I think we should have more human labor take over farming but on an individual level that's working much much closer to the consumption source. Think having your own farmer and food-producer in your own house or property, or perhaps shared with your small flock of neighbors. Way too-many of the problems plaguing society atm can be solved by reducing transport and eliminating all the huge intermediate step…

Small-scale agriculture like that is _vastly_ less efficient than industrialised agriculture. It won't create valuable jobs, it'll take labor away from valuable jobs.

Re: Agricultural drones are transforming rice farming in the Mekong River delta

#144

Post by tomnipotent »

langsoul-com wrote: post #87
majoe wrote: post #80

Slightly related, but off-topic. It's astonishing how high-tech agriculture has become without the general public noticing much of it. I recently had a longer talk with my uncle, who is a farmer in South Germany, where he told me about the newish technology he is using: - Milking robots: the process is entirely automated, the cows basically go inside the milking stations by themselves. - His newer tractors are all dr…

Farming has always been innovative, except where an extreme abundance exists, like flood farming.

> Farming has always been innovative

Shout out to Tractor Wars, which I never expected to enjoy as much as I did.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgtHQUi8AvQ

Re: Agricultural drones are transforming rice farming in the Mekong River delta

#145

Post by nsvd »

wrp wrote: post #86
majoe wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, I forgot a neat one: Drones with thermal imaging to prevent fawns to be killed by tractors.

Fawns , as in female deer? Is hitting them with tractors really a problem?

A female deer is called a doe.

Re: Agricultural drones are transforming rice farming in the Mekong River delta

#146

Post by boringg »

gumby wrote: post #32

This is so great. My long term dream is that robotics take over farming, individually plucking each weed or weevil, and metering just the right amount of water for each individual plant, so that all the crops are organic. Most of the chemicals (yes, including nitrogen fertilizers) offset labor, so when the labor is free we shouldn’t need them. And people won’t have to spend their lives in stoop-back work or exposed t…

None of the inputs to farming will ever be free. Whomever owns the robots will be charging for their labour you are only substituting one form for another. Potentially it might workout better for production numbers still tbd. Farmers these days are beholden to the agri tech companies for costs and maintenance.

That is a great dream to have. In the energy world it was supposed that prices would go to close to zero with fully adopted solar but thats an equivalent far fetched dream.

Re: Agricultural drones are transforming rice farming in the Mekong River delta

#147

Post by freilanzer »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #136
inglor_cz wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now imagine how unfortunate it is to be a big, challenging game for human hunt... Compared to aurochs, the cows are thriving. (On a side note, I just saw a mounted skeleton of an aurochs yesterday, in the Danish National Museum in Copenhagen. That beast was huge , and it would look even more overwhelming to medieval or Iron Age people, who were on average shorter than us; I am 6 ft and that animal was as tall as me.…

> Compared to aurochs, the cows are thriving This depends on the level of empathy you have for cows. If you empathise with them as you would with humans, imagine making the same argument to justify slavery One could argue industrial farms are fate worse than death

This is what I wanted to convey with my original comment. It seems people think having millions of enslaved cows living in horrible conditions is an advantage for cows compared with "less successful species". I imagine the cows see it very differently.

Re: Agricultural drones are transforming rice farming in the Mekong River delta

#148

Post by IG_Semmelweiss »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #78
IG_Semmelweiss wrote: post #3

I dont get it. I dont farm rice or have experience in vietnam in particular. Yet in my experience, pesticide etc has always been done thru the already existing irrigation system with a pump. Of course with advice from a technical person. The irrigation system requires an upfront investment of course but you are already going to irrigate the plot so this is is a no brainer. Therefore unless the rice grows without any…

> I dont farm rice > I know rice is traditionally grown on flooded plains but that seems very risky A recurring HN trope is people who don't know about a subject feel like they have to have an opinion on it anyway. Why do you believe it's very risky / in the hands of nature? Flooded plains (aka rice paddies) have been used for thousands of years; rice is a semiaquatic plant so it needs to be submerged, and paddies ar…

History is also replete with droughts that killed millions of people

We are in 2025. We have plastics.

Anyway thats nit my question. My question was simple: how is is that continued, ongoing drone expense -into perpetutity- was cheaper than a one-time investment in irrigation system which can be used for water, pesticide, and even fertilizer?

Re: Agricultural drones are transforming rice farming in the Mekong River delta

#149

Post by infecto »

Muromec wrote: post #126
sshine wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their instinct is to stay put, which means they don't run when the tractor comes. A drone flies over the field, maps where the fawns are staying put, sends a message to automated tractors to reroute. This is probably the most "feel good" application of drones. That and detecting landmines.

That’s exactly the opposite of what thermal drones are use most of the other time

Is it? I believe the commercial application for drones with thermal cameras is fairly well establish at this point. You can spot a lot of things in buildings, transmission lines, etc.

Re: Agricultural drones are transforming rice farming in the Mekong River delta

#150

Post by infecto »

zo1 wrote: post #94
gumby wrote: post #32

This is so great. My long term dream is that robotics take over farming, individually plucking each weed or weevil, and metering just the right amount of water for each individual plant, so that all the crops are organic. Most of the chemicals (yes, including nitrogen fertilizers) offset labor, so when the labor is free we shouldn’t need them. And people won’t have to spend their lives in stoop-back work or exposed t…

I disagree. I think we should have more human labor take over farming but on an individual level that's working much much closer to the consumption source. Think having your own farmer and food-producer in your own house or property, or perhaps shared with your small flock of neighbors. Way too-many of the problems plaguing society atm can be solved by reducing transport and eliminating all the huge intermediate step…

This is the typical utopian dream that is complete horse manure. We like to look back and think how quaint and healthy things were but they were not. While there are a lot of improvements to be had in our current supply chain, going back to smaller farms is not the way to get there.

What you described would be more costly and I don't think there is really any relationship to health. Your food would end up being more expensive as most of the things you listed cost very little in the grand scheme, labor is the most expensive part.

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