Slashdot Mirror
Hi-Tech Weed-Killer
Makarand writes "Instead of making improvements to automatic mechanical weeders, Engineers at UC Davis have been
busy
developing the next generation robotic weeder which will use computerized images of
crop rows to identify weeds and zap them. The system can identify weeds from the regular crop by
assessing shape, color, size and other variables from the captured images of the crop row.
A robotic cultivator will then blast weeds with a weedkiller using syringes mounted on
a tractor. A GPS allows the system to calculate weed type densities within the field and the amounts of chemicals dispensed in the area."
If it can recognize the weed, how much harder would it be to design an arm to *pull* it!?! (or roll it and smoke it :)
Around here (midwestern USA), the farmers are reluctant to try even the most basic of new things (no-till farming, organics, etc). I'm having a hard time imagining any of the farmers that I know shelling out a couple of grand on a robot with a camera, to run up & down the fields.
Then again, if they can show how the cost is offset by gains in yields, then it just might get some use. Another concern is battery life - just how far is this thing going to go on a charge? 1 mile? That'll cover 4 rows...then what?
The weed-killing machine still has a few bugs. For example, overlapping weeds and crops can confound the computerized instructions that run the squirt guns.
Nothing still beats the human eye and mind for such tasks, since there are so many variables involved in the location of weeds versus crops.
If such equipment can be further refined, perhaps with a robotic arm to look behind and possibly separate weeds from crops, sometthing close to human accuracy can be obtained.
At least now, the danger to humans with working with pesticides can be reduced.
The Pigloo
Seems to me that a technology like this should be designed to be attractive to organic growers, since they're far more likely to be interested in a robotic weed killer. But it better have a fuel cell or enviromentally friendly battery, too.
And why kill weeds in place when you can just yank 'em and dump the whole thing in the compost pile? I was expecting a big bot with a couple of graspers on either end and a huge solar energy collecting mast on top.
But really, I just disagree with the premise that agriculture needs to be fully mechanized and automated to help the economy, or whatever tbe argument supporting things like this might actually be.
Read it again yourself. One of the points specifically made in the article is that the basic technology is adaptable to either conventional or organic methods. Note the following quotes from the article:
It sounds very much to me as though they are at least thinking of possible uses in organic growing.
And even if they do use pesticides, consider the likely alternatives. Big agribusiness is currently suggesting that the solution to weeds is to create gentically engineered crops that are resistant to herbicides and then blasting the whole field with tons of weed killer. A technique that sprays the stuff only on weeds is almost certainly a win over that, by reducing total herbicide use, reducing herbicide that winds up on the crops, and eliminating the need for genetically engineered plants.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
Good idea, but what you are missing is the fact that the ground only holds so much in amount of nutients, water, etc, and even if some plants give back some nutrients to the soil while growing, the secondary plants will just be competition to the primary crop, resulting in stunted yields. Also, with the height that corn grows, it would be virtually impossible to grow anything in between the rows, since the corn would block all the sunlight to the shorter plants. The secondary crop would grow well until the corn grew taller than it, but in the end this hurts the very important early growth of the corn. This would also result in leaching of the soil, since there would be so much growing in such a small place, with neither growing to its full capability.
Or...farmers can just continue rotating crops every year like they do and adding only as much fertilizer as needed, keeping their yields as high as possible.