[HN Gopher] Robot treats 500k plants per hour with 95% less chem... ___________________________________________________________________ Robot treats 500k plants per hour with 95% less chemicals [video] Author : zikohh Score : 128 points Date : 2022-11-16 20:39 UTC (2 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.youtube.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.youtube.com) | zurtri wrote: | I am waiting for this kind of tech to become viable for smaller | 'hobby' type farms. you know, under 100 acres. | | To get the spraying done by firing up a few drones would be | excellent. | | Particularly with weeds that are in hard to reach places on the | farm. | Gualdrapo wrote: | > I am waiting for this kind of tech to become viable for | smaller 'hobby' type farms. | | And, you know, cheap. And usable in difficult terrain. | | I can't imagine my father, or any farmer who does their job at | small scales here in developing countries, being able to afford | technology like that. | Mountain_Skies wrote: | Love these types of advances though I wonder if weeds and pests | will adapt to outwit the robot or if our ability to adapt | automation to such changes simply will always/usually be too | rapid for nature to keep up. | searine wrote: | Pests will adapt to physical pest control like fire or crop | rotation by timing their life cycles to avoid it. Robots aren't | any different in that regard, if used without care pests could | hypothetically adapt to their usage. | | The key to preventing this kind of adaptation is multiple modes | of action. Robots do offer that ability because they can be | used to both physically remove pests, and also chemically treat | pests like in the video. | | If you have two to three robust modes of action, you can | basically prevent resistance from happening entirely. | goalieca wrote: | Firmware updates happen a lot faster than evolution. I | personally like the laser one and mechanical weeders | 0xdeadbeefbabe wrote: | Evolution might hijack the firmware update process now. | Vt71fcAqt7 wrote: | Well if the weeds adapt into corn to outwit the robot that | wouldn't be too bad. | empyrrhicist wrote: | Fun fact, that's sort of how we got Rye. | Vt71fcAqt7 wrote: | Wow, thanks for that fact! | | >It is possible that rye traveled west from Asia Minor as a | minor admixture in wheat (possibly as a result of | Vavilovian mimicry), and was only later cultivated in its | own right.[0] | | Also found this about rye while looking that up: | | >Recently, scholars have discovered that rye, more than | other domesticated crops has followed a weedy species type | of domestication process--from wild to weed to crop and | then back to weed again.[1] | | [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rye | | [1]https://www.thoughtco.com/rye-the-domestication- | history-4092... | bergenty wrote: | I don't think there is anything a plant can realistically do to | adapt to a high enough wattage laser burning it away in the | seedling stage. | geraneum wrote: | It's natural selection and perhaps it's more likely that they | will go extinct in such a scenario. | cwkoss wrote: | There is a plant that mimics the shapes of other leaves - even | if the leaves are made out of plastic. Pretty fascinating, the | same photoreceptors suspected to enable this have been found in | other plants, but the others don't use it to engage in mimicry. | | Weeds adapting to look like non-weeds is highly plausible, IMO. | | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8903786/#:~:tex... | . | mfiguiere wrote: | Mindblowing that it geo-locates and stores the centimeter scale | position of the 4M plants of a farm! | hzhou321 wrote: | Nice! If the robots can sustain on solar energy, even better. | pxue wrote: | Just waiting for the day when the robot decides we are also a | weed. | sbf501 wrote: | I expected farm-pest-control robots to look more like the ones in | the film "Runaway" (1984) than a big laser turret you drag over a | field. | bamboozled wrote: | Weeds are the enemy /s | | But really, the whole idea of having perfectly manicured fields | like that with no sign of any weeds around seems like the real | problem to me. | | Zero biodiversity...we wonder where the insects are going ? | nemo wrote: | On the one hand, the reason for the decline of the various | milkweed butterflies appears largely to be a result of areas | that once supported some milkweed populations were hit with | glyphosate which killed the host plants off at a massive scale. | On the other hand this is already happening with chemicals | sprayed indiscriminately, this reduces the amount that's | sprayed, which could save farmers money, and this reduces | glyphosate runoff which is good. Still seems to have the down | side that if actually adopted would likely cause even more loss | since it could be used on crops where it's avoided now. And no | farmer is going to program it to skip milkweed or some other | important host plants, they hate milkweed. | abstractbill wrote: | As the video points out (toward the end), since these robots | recognize and work on each individual plant, they are much more | able to deal with more biodiversity than our current methods, | which can only scale for monocrops. | cwkoss wrote: | Would be super cool to have an autonomous robot that could | get a 'kill list' and destroy every invasive plant in an area | while leaving everything else unharmed. | | Could be a fantastic diversity-enabling tool. | jollyllama wrote: | Careful usage of cover crops and planting companion plants | would be the opposite of that kind of approach. Companion | plants will to some degree prevent weeds, generally without | competing for the same nutrients as the crop. Usually they're | selected based on their ability to attract beneficial insects | as well, which function as a form of pest control. This is | really only viable at the scale of gardening, but when used | effectively, can produce much higher per-area yields. | Hermitian909 wrote: | Having worked a farm for a few summers, my understanding is | that we're dealing with the following set of tradeoffs. | | 1. If you allow weeds, you'll need to till the soil to maintain | yields | | 2. If you till the soil you erode it, damaging the the long | term health of your farm and water supplies. | | 3. If you drop yields globally, people starve (and farmers go | out of business) | | Since eroding the soil harms biodiversity in a different set of | ways, killing weeds seems like the least bad option. Ideally we | wouldn't require harsh chemicals to do that but no one has | quite figured it out. | justinator wrote: | Maybe it's monocrops that are problematic. | sidibe wrote: | I'm not saying either of you are wrong but the we'll be | needing the robots to do it other ways or 10x as many | farmers. It takes a ton of labor to deal with weeds and other | issues in a more sustainable way | bamboozled wrote: | So I understand this is not realistic currently; However | where I currently reside, basically everybody grows their | own food, and has plenty of time to be doing other things | in the meantime. | | So while we all need robots, there are probably a hell of a | lot of people who would be able to produce even one crop a | year in their backyard, who don't bother. | jollyllama wrote: | We would probably all be much healthier if instead of | indirectly subsidizing make-work desk jobs, organic | vegetable gardening was subsidized instead. | tracker1 wrote: | No reason the robots won't reach "other ways" at a point | either. I think it will take a lot of combinations of | solutions over time. | | I still think there should be a lot more rotation between | general crops, animal grazing and replenishment cycles. | "Live" soil is becoming a problem and we keep | extracting/killing it faster than it's getting replenished. | Not to mention all the pesticide issues. | zwieback wrote: | There's _" no sign of any weeds/zero biodiversity"_ and then | there's "target the weeds that would crowd out your crop", | which is definitely a problem in my raised beds. | blockwriter wrote: | I picked up grains from a farm in Dwight, Illinois that makes | very limited use of herbicides and pesticides (it seems like | oats are all but impossible to grow economically without some | use of a weed killing agent). The farmer made the transition | for his health and the health of his kids, because he was | intuiting that certain health problems were the result of | agricultural chemicals. I was struck, walking in their corn | field, by the abundance of insects and weeds, and the absence | of these quantities in standard ag corn fields struck me as | alarming. | abledon wrote: | I'd love to work in this industry as a developer... coming from | web/cloud what would the average interview be like? Is it more | leetcode style? or system design? I would only want intermediate | developer position at most for starters. What are some projects | that would make someone stand out for AgTech Robotics stuff? | zmix wrote: | > What are some projects that would make someone stand out for | AgTech Robotics stuff? | | I guess, in addition to the typical engineering stuff (AI, | robotics, etc.) to work with these companies on startup-level, | a passion for agriculture, especially historical agriculture, | might be what could set you apart from competition. | modeless wrote: | Seems like it should hoe each weed instead of spraying it. I | guess that's a little harder to do. Maybe a lot harder. | | Two other things I thought were interesting in the video. One, | the idea of mapping the whole field is pretty cool. There must be | useful things you could do with a millimeter-scale 3D map of an | entire field. Two, this is happening in California, just a few | hours' drive from Silicon Valley. I hope some of the engineers | laid off recently find work in ag tech, because there will be | huge opportunities coming with the rise of computer vision and | (hopefully soon) robotics. | illys wrote: | I saw on one of the illustrations that the spray is made of | acetic acid. Pretty natural product, aka vinegar at low | concentration. | | Well targeted as they seem to do, I guess it is a good product | to preserve the soil and wanted plants with no harmful | residues. | modeless wrote: | That's cool, yeah, precise targeting should remove the need | for highly toxic herbicide. | ajpgrealish wrote: | Small Robot Company have a robot called Dick which uses "Non- | Chemical Weeding", i.e. they zap the weed to kill it, and it's | root. They use other small robots to do the mapping and | planting. I really like the idea of small, specialised robots | for different tasks. | | https://www.smallrobotcompany.com/weed-killing | busyant wrote: | > I really like the idea of small, specialised robots for | different tasks | | in my experience, this is the best approach. I worked at a | few biotechs that did a lot of lab automation. | | the robots that could do everything were hardly ever used | because they did everything poorly and seemed to be | constantly in need of repair. | | the robots that could do one simple job were always in use. | modeless wrote: | The text "to take place in early 2020" and "AVAILABLE 2021" | on that site, in November 2022, does not inspire confidence. | | I guess in the near term dozens of specialized robots for | each task will be necessary, but the idea I like is teams of | general purpose robots using simple tools to perform almost | any task "manually". It's too early to implement that now, | but I think it will be feasible within my lifetime. | danielheath wrote: | Weed zapping is fascinating - but putting the kind of power | electronics required to deliver sufficient voltage in a | mobile robot is _terrifying_ from an OHSA perspective. | | One group I'm familiar with are using 50kv (and "more than | enough" amps) for the purpose. | marcosdumay wrote: | If there is nobody around when it's powered on, I don't see | a problem. | | If people have to stay around to care for it, then yes, | it's scary. | colechristensen wrote: | It's not really. Plenty of people have handheld tasers | powered by 9v batteries and plenty of farm equipment can | (and does) mangle people not being careful around very | dangerous machines. | | This is just a misunderstanding of the risks involved in | various things. | modeless wrote: | Yeah there are tons of really dangerous things on farms, | like Paraquat, or power take-offs. Power doesn't have to | be electrical to kill you. Mechanical power will do the | job just fine. | Jolliness7501 wrote: | Chemicals? Do you mean dihydrogen monoxide? Horible stuff. | Increase your cancer risc like from 0% to a 100%. | a_t48 wrote: | I worked with the founders of this company, sharp guys. Glad to | see they are doing well. | [deleted] | vavooom wrote: | Fascinating use of modern computer vision techniques equipped | with modern robotics. Challenge of course is scale and getting | farms to integrate such features into pre-existing processes over | time. | thesausageking wrote: | I'm fascinated by Freethink, the company that creates videos like | this for tech companies. Has anyone worked with this or similar | companies? How much does it cost and how was your experience? | | https://www.freethink.com/about/for-brands | lchengify wrote: | There's another company called Carbon Robotics that uses lasers | instead of weedkiller. | | The attachment they built needed a custom cooling rig to deal | with the dozens of lasers. Super interesting engineering going on | with agtech. | | https://www.freethink.com/robots-ai/farming-robot | 8bitsrule wrote: | Freethink brings a high degree of polish to their videos. Great | for promotion. Not so sure about the 'think' part yet. | | Another interesting Freethink video: "Generalist vs. specialist: | Which Is Better?". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ER2R-F68L0c | ALittleLight wrote: | One thought I had while watching that the video didn't seem to | explore is that if you can precisely map the field and remember | every plant, and you have 4 million plants on your field, then it | seems like you could enable precise experiments. Need to find the | best mix for fertilizer or pesticides? Seems like you could do | very precise and large N experiments to nail down what is best | for your plants in your field and possibly eke out some | additional return by doing so. | popol12 wrote: | Glad to hear that humans will be able to continue ruining the | planet after the last bee dies | jws wrote: | Maybe a dispensing system which more selectively targets the | weeds should instead of using less killer, use a less effective | killer. | | Instead of some clever bit of selective plant killing molecular | wizardry, just spray the weed with lye (NaOH). Dissolve the weed | and any overspray or residual will lightly raise the pH of the | soil. If you have alkaline soil problems, then maybe use | sulphuric acid instead. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-11-16 23:00 UTC)