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Open Source Farming Robot

farm.bot

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Re: Open Source Farming Robot

#41

Post by nozzlegear »

owlninja wrote: post #22
brigadier132 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why not?

To each their own, but small gardens like this are about the journey, not the destination.

I have a garden that I enjoy, but after years of trial I've learned to only plant hardy native plants and wild flowers because I have a black thumb for vegetables. My main issue is a lack of patience -- I don't want to go out to water everything or monitor if things are getting as much sunlight as I thought they would. But for the last couple years I'd been considering setting up a raspberry pi, some moisture sensors and some kind of drip system as a fun summer project to add on top of my flower garden, so that'd be a journey for me.

Re: Open Source Farming Robot

#42

Post by NilMostChill »

myprotegeai wrote: post #11

How many Farmbots would I need to feed 2 adults and 2 children year round? What challenges might I run into? Edit: Found a link to yield analysis https://farm.bot/pages/yield It appears the answer is however many Farmbots cover 549 square meters

This page has a section titled "Cups, Not Calories".

It hurts my soul that anybody producing a table such as that is using something as vague as a "cup" in their calculations.

Re: Open Source Farming Robot

#43

Post by semicolon_storm »

getpost wrote: post #30

It sill looks like the software is written by people who don't know how to care for plants. You don't spray water on leaves as shown in the video; you'll just end up with fungus infestation. You water the soil and nourish the microorganisms that facilitate nutrient absorption in roots. But, I don't see any reason the technology can't be adapted to do the right thing.

Water on the leaves isn’t bad if you’re watering in the morning where it’ll soon evaporate in the sunlight.

Re: Open Source Farming Robot

#44

Post by 6gvONxR4sf7o »

getpost wrote: post #30

It sill looks like the software is written by people who don't know how to care for plants. You don't spray water on leaves as shown in the video; you'll just end up with fungus infestation. You water the soil and nourish the microorganisms that facilitate nutrient absorption in roots. But, I don't see any reason the technology can't be adapted to do the right thing.

I think the idea is that using the CNC style design for everything makes it a simpler system? Watering from the soil may be better, but harder to automate to such an extreme? Automating the setup of irrigation lines with a CNC head seems like a pretty cool project though.

Re: Open Source Farming Robot

#46

Post by _heimdall »

zamfi wrote: post #40
_heimdall wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's interesting, I've had a very different experience. Maybe it comes down, partially, to a difference in climate? We're on a larger piece of land actually, mainly because we have cattle that we may eventually use for meat and dairy. Were producing a large chunk of our food on about 1 acre though, and even then most of that is non-productive land around our house. We have chickens that give us 6-7 eggs every day.…

> We live in the southeast US now, the climate is helpful for farming. I lived in Seattle for a few years and that climate would have been much harder to work with. Because of (a lack of) winter sunlight? Or something else?

A combination of a shorter growing season and less rainfall. Seattle has an interesting rap for being extremely rainy, but their average rainfall is around 38 inches while I get around 60 inches per year here.

We've had cattle on the land with us for the last two years, and though we have had to buy in hay its has been to supplement for 2-3 months rather than 5-6 months. We actually have the pasture space to grow and cut our own hay, that's just a comparatively big investment that we haven't taken on yet but is on the list to next year.

We don't own a tractor and aren't interested in getting one. That is our main blocker for producing our own hay, today everyone assumes you have a heavy tractor and all the implements needed to do the job.

Re: Open Source Farming Robot

#48

Post by _heimdall »

SoftTalker wrote: post #35
_heimdall wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd be better off doing the farming the old fashioned way if the goal is to feed a family. Farming is a terrible business to be in today, but that's mainly due to the abysmal profit margins. When your goal is to feed your family rather than turn a profit, that stops mattering. Most people with any yard or outdoor space could get to the point of growing/raising a large portion of their own food without too much inve…

It doesn't need to be ready for Instagram but you need to keep weeds under control, you need to keep insects under control, and you need to keep deer, rabbits, and other veggie-loving animals away or barricaded. You also need to provide irrigation when needed, and of course harvest the vegetables when they are ready. It's quite a bit of work if you want to maximize your harvest. Any kind of serious vegetable garden p…

Its all in expectations I guess. We have been focusing on balancing yield with investment. If we can get half the production for a quarter of the work, we'll take that trade off.

We've actually been running a test this year that has been interesting to watch play out. Our garden isn't very dense comparatively, and its planted into what was pasture before. We did cut the grass when planting and have trimmed it a few times, but its far from a garden free of weeds.

We also planted a space along the lines of a milpa or a chaos garden. We planted corn in rows, untilled and effectively just a grass pasture that we clipped short to start. When the corn germinated we followed behind with a variety of beans, peas, squash, and greens. It isn't nearly as productive per foot as it could be, but we haven't put much time into it beyond planting and a few deep waterings during a drought.

I think an hour a day is a totally reasonable expectation. To me that's worth it, but that wouldn't work for everyone and finding an hour a day may not be an easy ask depending on your lifestyle. I would argue, though, that if it isn't worth an hour a day to you you probably aren't too concerned with growing a large portion of your own food.

Re: Open Source Farming Robot

#49

Post by stale2002 »

NilMostChill wrote: post #38
r2_pilot wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't the point of being smart human beings is that we do things better than what occurs in nature?

That assumes that rain falling on leaves serves no purpose.

Nature isn't perfect and has disadvantages compared to us.

We don't have to invent ex post facto explanations for why something is the case in nature or why there is some un-intuitive reason as for why the natural way is better.

Re: Open Source Farming Robot

#50

Post by abdullahkhalids »

The idea of introducing robotics to farming is very attractive. It doesn't seem like this is a scalable solution for farming, but a sufficient one for gardening.

They started this project a decade ago. But robotics has advanced quite a bit in that time. Surely, today it is much more viable to have four wheeled robots watering, weeding etc at the same precision this product can. Then why build a gantry.

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