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…
Oh, I forgot a neat one: Drones with thermal imaging to prevent fawns to be killed by tractors.
I can see this making sense for monitoring and observation and even for very targeted application of pesticides. But bulk application of pesticides and seed, I just can't imagine land vehicles aren't more efficient in terms of energy use and longevity. Maybe rice fields are particularly unsuited to it. But buying a drone as an investment for your children... I don't think it's gonna last that long.
Vietnam has lot of terrace farms done on side of hills. Maybe land vehicles aren't optimized for them.
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…
In a recent episode of Countryfile [1](popular UK BBC1 program on the country and farming) the resident farmer was mentioning both crop rotation and the issue of black grass invading his wheat fields. The black grass was slowly out competing his cash crop and would difficult to remove (perhaps taking the entire field out of any production for a year or the use of chemicals). Having a horde of little robots might grea…
I am searching for solutions in this field. Do you have any links to any consumer hardware for this. like drones which can cut down small invasive plants which were selected by AI?
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…
> - A lot of data is collected for each cow and processed by an external company. This goes down to temperature measurements at each teat in the milking robot. The external company monitors each cow and plans individual treatment to prevent diseases and to optimize milk production.
Very unfortunate for cows that they're able to produce milk for human consumption.
I wonder if drones will change the placement of farms. Right now, farms are very wide and flat, this makes it easier for tractors and spraying pesticides.
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…
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?
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.
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…
Oh, I forgot a neat one: Drones with thermal imaging to prevent fawns to be killed by tractors.
Anecdote on this: I've been flying R/C planes and drones in some publicly accessible fields with friends for years. Some farmers were a bit confrontational when they saw us (sometimes understandably so, we were always careful but the occasional crash and aircraft retrieval in the middle of a field _did_ happen...). But a few of them were interested, and asked if we could arrange to take some pictures and videos of the fields at specific times, to search for fawns before harvest or similar things. We were happy to oblige, and in return got access to even nicer, non-public areas to gather and fly from regularly. Win-win for all involved.
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?
Fawns as in "deer children". When young, they lie down in fields a lot, and don't have the flight instict developed yet, so if they're in the field with the "parent" deer out getting food and the tractors / harvesters come by, it can be legitimately dangerous.
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.
Thanks to modern capitalism, there's no such thing as a (localised) extreme abundance. Extremely fertile land will be bid up, until it's productivity per-dollar-value will be equivalent to other land.
So we will always have incentives for innovation.
(I specifically say 'localised', because on a global level we are living in extreme abundance by historic standards.)