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Electric Monarch tractor can plow a field without a driver and run for ten hours

239 points by dakna 6y ago

sandworm101 6y ago
Progress yes, but at a peak of 70hp it won't be plowing much more than a hobby garden. Autonomous operation is all well and good but expect resistance. Look at how many farmers are injured by tractor equipment. They will rightly fear driverless tractors.
- gambiting 6y ago
  Uhm.....I'm pretty sure my family has been plowing fields(and I do mean fields, not hobby gardens) with our trusty old Ursus C330[0], making a whole 30 horse power. Not sure why 70hp would be a problem. https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ursus_C-330 https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ursus_C-330
  - kemiller 6y ago
    Not to mention that fields are still plowed by actual horses.
    - sandworm101 6y ago
      FYI a modern horse can generate many horsepower, between 10 and 15hp per horse.
      - tomcam 6y ago
        For speed purposes I always hook my horses up in series, not parallel. With 10 horses I can usually pull a carriage at like 160mph on level ground ;)
  - xoa 6y ago
    Yes. I've got a 28HP Kubota L-series, and have been contemplating upgrading to an M-series, but even 46 would probably set us for a good while and lots of farmers around here still find use for tractors 50+ years old that are smaller than that. Yes there are huge JDs beyond that, and the M-series tops out at 168 HP, but 70 HP still seems way beyond "hobby" level and I'm honestly and genuinely surprised to see it called that way. I mean sure I understand that in the midwest there are ginormous scale farms which are very important and a backbone of certain parts of our agriculture, but there are still plenty of farms in New England and other areas which are doing a few hundred acres or less, and experimenting with different kinds of farming (like paddy farms for rice) and intensity which alter the need for sheer power. I don't have the slightest disdain for the megafarms, but it seems a bit blinders to consider them to be the only thing in existence too. Not that there couldn't be other issues with this, but 70 HP would be plenty useful at the right price and running cost. Calling it "hobby level" seems dismissive. Something kind of roughly equivalent like the M4-071 is at least $50k, I'm not sure how many hobbyists are dropping that kind of capital on a whim in the country. At $50-100k most families are going to be thinking about commercial ROI aren't they?
    - jelliclesfarm 6y ago
      I think it depends on the kind of crops grown. Combines, grain bins, harvesters etc are a whole diff ball game when it comes to grain or corn on 1000+ acres for commodity crop farms
      - xoa 6y ago
        Oh, absolutely. There are major farms operating on a completely different scale for mass staple crops, and bless them because it's an efficient backbone to a lot of our core foods. But I don't think the continued existence of small farms is that obscure either is it? This is now 3 year old (2017) data [0], and the last few years have been hard. But it's not that out of date yet nor did it shift that much from 2012 [1], the overwhelming majority of the few million farms in America are small family owned operations with <$100k annual income. Average size just 450 or so acres and even that is skewed up by the few percent of enormous farms. I guess I'm just kind of fascinated the first few comments on something like this would be about it being "hobbyist". Anything that could lower operating costs and externalities for small farms also deserves a bit more positive attention. ----- 0: https://www.usfarmdata.com/percentage-of-small-medium-and-large-farms-in-the-us https://www.usfarmdata.com/percentage-of-small-medium-and-la... 1: https://www.nass.usda.gov/Publications/Highlights/2016/SmallFamilyFarms.pdf https://www.nass.usda.gov/Publications/Highlights/2016/Small...
  - throwaway894345 6y ago
    American fields are larger, so American farmers can take advantage of larger plows for better efficiency; however, larger plows require more power from the tractor.
    - bluGill 6y ago
      American farms rarely plow in the traditional sense of a plow. No till is cheaper and better for the soil. It is tricky to get into, but it is not new.
      - throwaway894345 6y ago
        Tilling is plenty common in the midwest, but in any case there are many other implements for which the same principle applies—bigger fields => bigger implements => more power.
  - jessaustin 6y ago
    Do you have a picture of the plow? I can't imagine it has more than say... three bottoms, if we're being generous. American farmers need more than that. This summer I had to really crank a 90hp tractor to pull a fairly small set of discs. 30hp is a lawnmower.
- minhazm 6y ago
  Tractors don't need horse power, they need torque.
  - WesleyLivesay 6y ago
    Torque is certainly important, which is why I was a bit surprised that they haven't released torque figures for this. Just the ever nebulous "twice as much as similar sized competitors"
  - throwaway9870 6y ago
    That makes no sense. You can get torque with lower gearing, therefore, if tractors only needed torque, then even the largest tractors could get by with a tiny engine given enough gearing. The problem is, farmers need tractors to move faster than .1 MPH, so that is why they have large engines that generate serious HP.
- WesleyLivesay 6y ago
  Those were my thoughts as well. Around the size of a hobby tractor and it will be interesting to see if they can scale it up without losing endurance. I also feel that 10 hours of battery time isn't sufficient outside of the hobby space. Especially when considering that it probably isn't road legal in autonomous mode.
  - chickenpotpie 6y ago
    10 hours of autonomous is pretty great. Someone can’t safely operate a tractor for 10 hours straight anyways
    - sandworm101 6y ago
      Which is why people work in shifts. Tractors/combines regularly work 24/7 during harvest.
- kemiller 6y ago
  Plenty of tractors in this power class, and electric torque means it will punch above its weight: https://www.kubotausa.com/products/tractors/utility https://www.kubotausa.com/products/tractors/utility Autonomy is a proof-is-in-the-pudding thing. If it works as advertised, people will adopt it eventually.
- GlenTheMachine 6y ago
  This thing isn't meant to pull your 8-bottom plow attachment. It isn't the tractor a large-scale wheat or corn farmer is going to use to work the fields. Those tractors generate hundreds of horsepower and cost $250k. But there is plenty of market for a small utility tractor, and the people using those aren't all hobby farmers. You don't use your massive 500 hp John Deere 9630 to stack hay bales or cultivate your row crops or power your auger or post driver. Even if you have a 500 hp monster you'll still want a utility tractor. Right tool for the right job.
  - jcims 6y ago
    >cost $250k for reference here’s the used market for one of their larger tractors: https://www.tractorhouse.com/listings/farm-equipment/for-sale/list/category/1234/tractors-300-hp-or-greater/manufacturer/john-deere/model/8rx-370 https://www.tractorhouse.com/listings/farm-equipment/for-sal... Some combines just for the fun in it: https://www.tractorhouse.com/listings/farm-equipment/for-sale/list/category/1112/harvesters-combines/manufacturer/john-deere/model/s790 https://www.tractorhouse.com/listings/farm-equipment/for-sal...
  - bryanlarsen 6y ago
    Autonomy is the game changer here. For $250K you can buy 5 of these little tractors and draw 5 12ft cultivators rather than a single 60 footer. Drive one manually to mark the headland and let the other 4 fill it in.
    - jelliclesfarm 6y ago
      Bingo! And no seasonal labour shortages. And you can control everything from something like. A game console.
    - bluGill 6y ago
      You wouldn't though because the one big tractor does less damage to the soil.
    - tonyarkles 6y ago
      Joking around a little bit, but I'm kind of curious if the autonomy function would let me summon it when I get my truck stuck. Way nicer than having to walk a few miles to go get the tractor...
- pjc50 6y ago
  Surprisingly large number of tractor injuries are overturning when operating on steep slopes, a category easily avoided by not having a driver.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - AnimalMuppet 6y ago
    It would be nice if the electric could detect that circumstance (overturning) and shut itself off...
- bri3d 6y ago
  There are a lot of operations that use midsized utility tractors extensively. This certainly won't replace a large tractor in wheat, hay, corn, and soy (plowing, disc, mowing, bailing, etc.) but can definitely replace utility tractors in orchard/vineyard spraying, CSA and organic farm style mixed-crop cultivation, etc. Think more California than Nebraska.
- bryanlarsen 6y ago
  Before electric motors, factories used to have a single giant coal engine that used pulleys and crankshafts to distribute that power all across the factory. When electric motors became available, they replaced that single giant coal engine with a single giant electric motor. They got their lunch eaten by people who built new factories with electric motors at every station, distributing the power using wire. These tractors are autonomous, you can have multiple tractors per operator. 5 50hp tractors are probably cheaper and more capable and easier to run by a single operator than a single 250hp diesel monster.
  - throwaway0a5e 6y ago
    >50hp tractors are probably cheaper and more capable and easier to run by a single operator than a single 250hp diesel monster. 5 50hp tractors are in no way cheaper than one 250. Soooo many more duplicated systems and stuff to maintain and repair. With the fleet of small tractors you have like 4x the number of hours tied up in service. And before anyone say "hurr durr muh electric" I would advice you to google up some small machine manuals, look at the service intervals and see what you'll be doing the most of. Electric motors don't mean you can throw out your grease gun. The bulk of the hours on heavy equipment maintenance are spend on the business ends of the machine that take the abuse, attachments and drive-train, not engine/trans.
- Yetanfou 6y ago
  Both tractors I use have around 68hp on the engine, ~65hp on the PTO. Both have front loaders, one of them has an excavator on the back. I run them in the fields (mowing, turning, baling, etc.) and in the forest (logging, skidding, forwarding, etc.). Tractors do not need huge engines to be useable on the farm, this is only needed for 3-swathe mowers, 10-row ploughs, high-speed baler/wrappers etc.
- tsomctl 6y ago
  There's a difference between peak horsepower output and continuous horsepower output. A normal passenger car might be able to put out 300 hp, but only for a short period of time before blowing the headgasket (or destroying the drive train). Diesel engine with gobs of torque or electric is going to produce that power at a lower speed and more efficiently, so it will be able to do it longer. Being able to put out 70hp nonstop for hours on end is nothing to be ashamed of.
  - sandworm101 6y ago
    A modern engine will run at full hp for extended periods, hundreds of hours. In many ways, lower power settings at lower rpms can be harder on engines than running flat out. In a family car, the cooling system would drop the ball long before anything as substantial as a head gasket. It would overheat long before any actual damage.
    - tsomctl 6y ago
      Hundreds of hours, perhaps. But not for the entire life of the engine. If a modern passenger car engine could put out 200 hp nonstop for years on end, every semi-truck manufacturer would be putting a BMW engine in it, instead of a huge cast iron Cummins. But I'm pretty sure you'd spin a bearing, or wear out the cylinder liner, or burn a valve.
      - throwaway0a5e 6y ago
        If you tuned a semi engine for peak power the way automotive engines are they wouldn't last 400k either. You can get automotive engines with similar power to weight or power to displacement numbers as semi truck engines. They're just normal automotive engines sold for industrial use.
        tsomctl 6y ago
        I guess I’m not articulating myself well, because I’m basically agreeing with you.
GlenTheMachine 6y ago
No front-end loader. Less torque than a John Deere. Lame. \s
- mu5tach3 6y ago
  The informations are quite rare, but one of their Youtube videos mentions "the ability to connect a front load" (https://youtu.be/xcpi4vR-_44?t=334 https://youtu.be/xcpi4vR-_44?t=334)
  - recursive 6y ago
    It's a reference to this. https://slashdot.org/story/01/10/23/1816257/apple-releases-ipod https://slashdot.org/story/01/10/23/1816257/apple-releases-i...
- monarchtractor 6y ago
  Hey Glen, our tractor has an optional front end loader and has 2x the torque of tractors in our class. Would love to give you more details feel free to connect at info@monarchtractor.com
  - GlenTheMachine 6y ago
    ‘Twas a joke! This is what “they” said about the iPod when it was released. https://slashdot.org/story/01/10/23/1816257/apple-releases-ipod https://slashdot.org/story/01/10/23/1816257/apple-releases-i...
zaroth 6y ago
Once John Deere starting DRM’ing their tractors it just screams entrenched monopoly. But where’s the barrier to entry? AI is going to dramatically alter this competitive landscape and John Deere’s DRM is not going to to stop it. Honestly, I love watching these companies drive nails into their own coffins. I was on the Google homepage today on my iPhone and was getting popups advertising Chrome (on the homepage!) and then again in the search results advertising the Google app. I changed my default to DDG right then and there. Seriously, it’s like 4 taps. Settings > Safari > Search Engine > DDG. Don’t support these shitty companies and just watch them burn themselves to the ground. It might take 10 years but consumers ultimately will be the arbiter.
- badconvincer 6y ago
  It’s not enough to exist. You actually have to perform at least comparably, which DDG doesn’t unfortunately.
  - monadic3 6y ago
    DDG is fine for many types of queries. It also doesn't have many of (what I consider) the drawbacks of google's search: hostile ad positioning, AMP, autoscraped meta crap. Pretending you can't compare them is ridiculous.
  - nxmnxm99 6y ago
    Yeah I've tried DDG reliably for nearly a year. A good 30% of the time I end up having to run my query on Google anyway. I will literally pay money for a search engine that's privacy focused and can get closer to Google in terms of performance.
    - danwills 6y ago
      I reckon I'd pay for that too, actually sounds really, really awesome (assuming the performance is there)
    - nanna 6y ago
      Personally I need to switch from ddg to Google maybe 0.1% of my searches, but at least for you you've managed to avoid Google 70% of the time, and it's not like adding a !g to do so takes more a milisecond.
whizzkid 6y ago
+ Really good idea to make use of the electricity in other ways than just driving. (generators, lamps, etc.) + 10 hours covers up a good day in field. - a lot of farms are away from electricity sources to charge and sometimes internet connection is non-existent. It is risky to leave a 50k machine on its own to do its job. And what to do if battery runs out on the field? - how long does it take to recharge? A lot of farmers will not have fast charges on their farm.
- asutekku 6y ago
  Charging overnight + installing solar panels near the fields will solve problem. Of course it’s easier said than done, but changing processes will lead to the solution.
  - salty_biscuits 6y ago
    It would be perfect if the autonomy worked well in the dark, then it could just work at night and then charge during the day.
    - koolba 6y ago
      I’ve seen lawn mowers that do that. No solar charging, but it does cut grass in the dark. It’s actually pretty creepy to see the head light pop out from behind a corner.
      - MereInterest 6y ago
        That sounds awful from a noise perspective. I live across the street from a shopping center, and they tend to do all of their cleaning late at night, to avoid disturbing customers. No care at all for the sleep of neighbors when running leaf blowers at 11 PM.
        deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
        6y ago
jelliclesfarm 6y ago
I invited the CEO to my farm and we had a chat about their plans. I am impressed that they launched exactly what he said that they would...it seems to me that they are the only ones in the Agrobotics market(and I know/have spoken to 15-17 of them worldwide) who can scale because they have a solid plan and can ramp up. And they will be affordable. They have ticked all the boxes that create the (manufacturing) bottlenecks for every other Agbot start up/company out there.
- monarchtractor 6y ago
  Thank you for the support Jelliclesfarm! It was great coming out and look forward to following up!
loosescrews 6y ago
It seems like a farm could increase their productivity by letting these run autonomously at night and continuing to use human drivers with their old equipment during the day.
- mattnewton 6y ago
  Or buy multiple to alternate, and just keep a mechanic and a tiny fraction of your prior workforce around for special cases
LinuxBender 6y ago
Nice! Are they going to spread out into other areas? Drilling rigs? Muckers? Something to replace the Sandvik rigs and fully automate drilling and blasting would be cool. They are already partially automated (pattern, depth) but require a human to operate. I think getting humans out of mines should reduce insurance costs and health risks.
- gbuk2013 6y ago
  They are actively testing self-driving combine harvesters in Russia, which makes perfect sense: large fields without too many random objects and mind numbing work for a human pilot. https://www.foodandfarmingtechnology.com/news/autonomous-vehicles/russias-self-driving-combine-harvester-works-flawlessly.html https://www.foodandfarmingtechnology.com/news/autonomous-veh... Also big-ass mining trucks: https://techacute.com/zyfra-huawei-5g-test-autonomous-mining-trucks-russia/ https://techacute.com/zyfra-huawei-5g-test-autonomous-mining...
paulkrush 6y ago
Anyone have good, in production, examples where equipment has gotten smaller than before because a human no longer needs to operate it?
- danielheath 6y ago
  Predator drones?
  - paulkrush 6y ago
    Well robots to carry camera/sensors are clearly a good answer to my question. I would say a rumba is a weak answer.
- bluGill 6y ago
  Bet on bigger. Soil compaction is not linear with weight, but a heavy tractor has less tire tracks over a field. Thus the bigger the tractor the better for the soil.
Simulacra 6y ago
This is fascinating but I'm surprised by how little progress we've made in automating farm work. There have been articles about how complicated it is for a computer to pick vegetables and fruits, and how nothing compares to the human hand. How long will it be before we see robots take over the field, displacing seasonal workers? https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2018/03/20/592857197/robots-are-trying-to-pick-strawberries-so-far-theyre-not-very-good-at-it https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2018/03/20/592857197/ro...
- opinion-is-bad 6y ago
  Between 1970 and 2013, the % of Americans working in agriculture dropped from 4.4 to 1.5. I’d say we have continued to make excellent progress, it’s just not as sexy as robot fruit pickers.
  - Animats 6y ago
    Yes. Almost everything in farming of major crops has been mechanized for years, if not decades. Fruit picking is still a problem, but it's slowly being cracked. In the more advanced countries, cow milking and meat cutting is done by robots. The US is starting to catch up.[1] Advanced technology from New Zealand is finally reaching the US. The countries that don't have a supply of low-wage illegal immigrants are ahead in advanced ag technology. [1] https://www.robots.com/applications/meat-processing-automation https://www.robots.com/applications/meat-processing-automati...
    - opinion-is-bad 6y ago
      Our farm purchased several New Zealand asparagus sorting machines back in the 90s and they were quite excellent. They would size the spears by laser, and could do color analysis as well. There was still a significant manual component, but half the workers could manage the same throughput. Sadly we no longer use these machines, as there is no market for growing asparagus in the US these days. Labor costs have caused all the acreage to move into Mexico. I’m not sure I’d agree the US is overall behind in automation compared to other countries, but I think we probably do have automation in different places. Farm labor is certainly not cheap in California. Our blueberry pickers averaged about $23 an hour this year. I admit I have no context for what would be an acceptable rate in New Zealand or Europe, but I can’t imagine it’s much more than that.
analog31 6y ago
Granted it's not one of the behemoth's that I see in the Midwest. But I would see a 10 hour run time as a limitation. My friends who raise corn & beans have described their work as being like flying a small plane: Hours of boredom capped off at the ends by a few moments of sheer terror. The opportunities to plant and harvest are dictated by the weather, and when it's good, they want to be running their machines around the clock if possible. Bad weather is a mess -- it multiplies effort and breakdowns exponentially.
- ogre_codes 6y ago
  It's 40HP, this is a small farm or utility tractor. The big harvesters and monster tractors they use for tilling 100s of acres at a time are a whole other league.
- momokoko 6y ago
  Is “Midwest behemoth” a common term in farming? I’ve seen two top level comments use it in this thread. Other top level comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25394576 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25394576
- oliwarner 6y ago
  It's only a limitation if you run one machine. These are cheap and employee-less. You just run a gang of them around the clock.
ogre_codes 6y ago
I would love to see something like this in the 20HP range with a front end loader. I love our 26HP Kubota, but would jump on electric in a heartbeat to get away from diesel machines.
cwkoss 6y ago
I want a 1/10th scale one for my garden.
- lambdatronics 6y ago
  Will this satisfy you? :D https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/rorymackean/tertill-the-solar-powered-weeding-robot-for-home-g https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/rorymackean/tertill-the...
orasis 6y ago
Heavy batteries are actually an asset in such scenarios because light tractors often lose traction when plowing compacted soil.
joshu 6y ago
I know these guys! They are a super impressive team. Wish I could have invested, but they'd already too expensive for for me...
blorenz 6y ago
This is quite an impressive machine coming out of a startup. I'm surprised by all the comments that expect them to go head to head with John Deere right out of the gate. This autonomous tractor is their entrance into the foyer of this Ag space. Sure it's not the Midwest behemoth that we have working the fields here in Ohio, but give them some years to get their tech in order to produce that. Bringing products to market is an expensive endeavor in time, money and resources. Personally, I've only dealt with software so I cannot imagine something of this nature. Good work with the Monarch and I'll be watching this space to see what you turn out.
edsonmedina 6y ago
Doesn't the added efficiency in plowing mean more carbon release from the soil (thus offseting any gains from not using diesel)?
justinlloyd 6y ago
Next up: A semi-autonomous backhoe and dozer that can intelligently dig a level bottomed hole to specific cubic dimensions with equipment accessible ramp and all the waste material piled neatly on the sides in safe and sane manner and then can also load that same material into a waiting dump truck. Can also work in a swarm of two or three machines for more effective material handling. All controlled by a remote operator whose sole job is to hit the stop button if he spots anything on the camera that shouldn't be there, e.g. an underground power line that wasn't mapped. Was a fun project to work on.
- calabin 6y ago
  You worked on a project like this? Sounds interesting! Are you able to tell us more, or if it was ever implemented?
  - justinlloyd 6y ago
    Yes. No. Yes.
- BHSPitMonkey 6y ago
  Sounds like a task out of 'Surviving Mars' (and the kind of tech I expect to see up there for real in a decade or so, if a crewed expedition is ever to actually take place).
- petra 6y ago
  http://www.builtrobotics.com http://www.builtrobotics.com
jp0d 6y ago
Most farmers depend on their tractors for their livelihood. I reckon it'll be difficult to convince them to shift to electric ones that costs more and haven't got any long term reliability or efficiency reports. If anything, battery powered cars lose a lot of value as their battery capacities tend to decline over time. Also, unless their farm has heavily invested in solar power, they'd still have to use electricity from the grid. In a country like Australia most electricity is generated from coal. So that's not really helping the environment. The EV industry will only last as long as we don't figure out efficient production and transportation of Hydrogen. This is impressive use of ML though.
- imtringued 6y ago
  >t'll be difficult to convince them to shift to electric ones that costs more This electric tractor markets itself as having twice the torque of an ICE tractor of a similar size. This means you don't need a bigger more expensive tractor. >If anything, battery powered cars lose a lot of value as their battery capacities tend to decline over time. EVs lose in value because of government subsidies. The list price is $30k but you only have to pay $25k because of subsidies. Nobody is going go buy your used EV for more than $25k because they can get a new one instead.
  - jp0d 6y ago
    I can understand why I got downvoted. I might have come across as an EV hater. I'm not one. I do appreciate the technology and acknowledge that it's the future. I was pointing out some of the flaws. I don't argue against the torque figures and everyone knows that EVs have more torque. Even the base model Teslas are faster off the line compared to some of the ICE super cars. I'm hopeful that we generate electricity from more renewable sources than burning coal or gas, which defeats the whole purpose. Long charging times, range anxiety and battery longevity are real issues for customers. I don't know if durability of electric motors for these sort of applications haven been proven yet. Hydrogen based EVs can fix most of these problem. But only if we can create Hydrogen more efficiently.
    - olau 6y ago
theraido 6y ago
This is a nice accomplishment, a step forward. But to some extends it's a step forward in a backwards system. It's a bit like the 'if cannibals start eating with forks, is it progress'-question. Agriculture has become a industry of scale, but that might be it's undoing. It might be better to have an electric tractor doing the ploughing, but wouldn't it be even better to do less ploughing? With the invention of fertilizers (which isn't bad in itself) we where able to scale, but we needed more fertilizer, the soil became more barren and devoid of soil life with every iteration. With heavier tractors we needed to lower the water level to not get stuck in the soft soils, the heavier tractors compacted the soils even more, so we needed heavier tractors to till en plough the soil again. Otherwise we couldn't force the same crop out of the soil year after year. When we're only looking at the economic outcomes of the agronomic industry, we're forgetting a few things. I work in IT, I work at an environmental NGO, I have an interest in agroecology, organic farming and such but I often feel it's an 'either/or' kind of thing. It's either locally sourced, community supported agriculture with a huge focus on soil restoration, resilience, crop rotation, diversity (polyculture? as opposite of monoculture) land access which attracts a specific crowd of people. Think leftist, anarchistic, community-oriented, spiritual-religious (which group I really like) but with a lot of menial/manual labor, a aversion of technology. Which can be explained by the centralistic nature of a lot of technology, and it often being focused on ‘vertical scaling’. Or it’s hip startups with sensor tech, drones, AI-platforms predicting where you’ll have te best results and use for example ‘variable-rate seeding’ and program your fleet of heavy tractors to automate it all. We’ve automated quite a lot in ‘beef production’, but maybe we should do less of that and focus more on finding solutions to scale horizontally? (Like we might need less humongous farms producing one specific product but more smaller farms producing various products). Hopefully this makes sense to someone ;)
- goodcanadian 6y ago
  Minimum till and zero till agriculture is already a thing. There is still a great need for tractors. Having grown up on a farm, I continually see people with an idea of agriculture that is massively out of date. Technology and techniques advance as they do in any industry. It's not perfect, and some farms are better than others, but farmers are continually striving to improve both for economic and for environmental reasons.
heisenbit 6y ago
We know electric drive trains are smaller and have more torque and allow very different architectures. But thinking about powered accessories I can see even more potential as placing an additional motor is way less material intensive than transmitting mechanical power.
- lambdatronics 6y ago
  And also safety! Power take-off injuries[0] can be really horrifying. [0]http://farminjuryresource.com/atv-injuries/farming-injuries/power-take-off-victims/ http://farminjuryresource.com/atv-injuries/farming-injuries/...

239 points by dakna 6y ago

Progress yes, but at a peak of 70hp it won't be plowing much more than a hobby garden. Autonomous operation is all well and good but expect resistance. Look at how many farmers are injured by tractor equipment. They will rightly fear driverless tractors.

gambiting 6y ago
Uhm.....I'm pretty sure my family has been plowing fields(and I do mean fields, not hobby gardens) with our trusty old Ursus C330[0], making a whole 30 horse power. Not sure why 70hp would be a problem. https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ursus_C-330 https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ursus_C-330
- kemiller 6y ago
  Not to mention that fields are still plowed by actual horses.
  - sandworm101 6y ago
    FYI a modern horse can generate many horsepower, between 10 and 15hp per horse.
    - tomcam 6y ago
      For speed purposes I always hook my horses up in series, not parallel. With 10 horses I can usually pull a carriage at like 160mph on level ground ;)
- xoa 6y ago
  Yes. I've got a 28HP Kubota L-series, and have been contemplating upgrading to an M-series, but even 46 would probably set us for a good while and lots of farmers around here still find use for tractors 50+ years old that are smaller than that. Yes there are huge JDs beyond that, and the M-series tops out at 168 HP, but 70 HP still seems way beyond "hobby" level and I'm honestly and genuinely surprised to see it called that way. I mean sure I understand that in the midwest there are ginormous scale farms which are very important and a backbone of certain parts of our agriculture, but there are still plenty of farms in New England and other areas which are doing a few hundred acres or less, and experimenting with different kinds of farming (like paddy farms for rice) and intensity which alter the need for sheer power. I don't have the slightest disdain for the megafarms, but it seems a bit blinders to consider them to be the only thing in existence too. Not that there couldn't be other issues with this, but 70 HP would be plenty useful at the right price and running cost. Calling it "hobby level" seems dismissive. Something kind of roughly equivalent like the M4-071 is at least $50k, I'm not sure how many hobbyists are dropping that kind of capital on a whim in the country. At $50-100k most families are going to be thinking about commercial ROI aren't they?
  - jelliclesfarm 6y ago
    I think it depends on the kind of crops grown. Combines, grain bins, harvesters etc are a whole diff ball game when it comes to grain or corn on 1000+ acres for commodity crop farms
    - xoa 6y ago
      Oh, absolutely. There are major farms operating on a completely different scale for mass staple crops, and bless them because it's an efficient backbone to a lot of our core foods. But I don't think the continued existence of small farms is that obscure either is it? This is now 3 year old (2017) data [0], and the last few years have been hard. But it's not that out of date yet nor did it shift that much from 2012 [1], the overwhelming majority of the few million farms in America are small family owned operations with <$100k annual income. Average size just 450 or so acres and even that is skewed up by the few percent of enormous farms. I guess I'm just kind of fascinated the first few comments on something like this would be about it being "hobbyist". Anything that could lower operating costs and externalities for small farms also deserves a bit more positive attention. ----- 0: https://www.usfarmdata.com/percentage-of-small-medium-and-large-farms-in-the-us https://www.usfarmdata.com/percentage-of-small-medium-and-la... 1: https://www.nass.usda.gov/Publications/Highlights/2016/SmallFamilyFarms.pdf https://www.nass.usda.gov/Publications/Highlights/2016/Small...
- throwaway894345 6y ago
  American fields are larger, so American farmers can take advantage of larger plows for better efficiency; however, larger plows require more power from the tractor.
  - bluGill 6y ago
    American farms rarely plow in the traditional sense of a plow. No till is cheaper and better for the soil. It is tricky to get into, but it is not new.
    - throwaway894345 6y ago
      Tilling is plenty common in the midwest, but in any case there are many other implements for which the same principle applies—bigger fields => bigger implements => more power.
- jessaustin 6y ago
  Do you have a picture of the plow? I can't imagine it has more than say... three bottoms, if we're being generous. American farmers need more than that. This summer I had to really crank a 90hp tractor to pull a fairly small set of discs. 30hp is a lawnmower.
minhazm 6y ago
Tractors don't need horse power, they need torque.
- WesleyLivesay 6y ago
  Torque is certainly important, which is why I was a bit surprised that they haven't released torque figures for this. Just the ever nebulous "twice as much as similar sized competitors"
- throwaway9870 6y ago
  That makes no sense. You can get torque with lower gearing, therefore, if tractors only needed torque, then even the largest tractors could get by with a tiny engine given enough gearing. The problem is, farmers need tractors to move faster than .1 MPH, so that is why they have large engines that generate serious HP.
WesleyLivesay 6y ago
Those were my thoughts as well. Around the size of a hobby tractor and it will be interesting to see if they can scale it up without losing endurance. I also feel that 10 hours of battery time isn't sufficient outside of the hobby space. Especially when considering that it probably isn't road legal in autonomous mode.
- chickenpotpie 6y ago
  10 hours of autonomous is pretty great. Someone can’t safely operate a tractor for 10 hours straight anyways
  - sandworm101 6y ago
    Which is why people work in shifts. Tractors/combines regularly work 24/7 during harvest.
kemiller 6y ago
Plenty of tractors in this power class, and electric torque means it will punch above its weight: https://www.kubotausa.com/products/tractors/utility https://www.kubotausa.com/products/tractors/utility Autonomy is a proof-is-in-the-pudding thing. If it works as advertised, people will adopt it eventually.
GlenTheMachine 6y ago
This thing isn't meant to pull your 8-bottom plow attachment. It isn't the tractor a large-scale wheat or corn farmer is going to use to work the fields. Those tractors generate hundreds of horsepower and cost $250k. But there is plenty of market for a small utility tractor, and the people using those aren't all hobby farmers. You don't use your massive 500 hp John Deere 9630 to stack hay bales or cultivate your row crops or power your auger or post driver. Even if you have a 500 hp monster you'll still want a utility tractor. Right tool for the right job.
- jcims 6y ago
  >cost $250k for reference here’s the used market for one of their larger tractors: https://www.tractorhouse.com/listings/farm-equipment/for-sale/list/category/1234/tractors-300-hp-or-greater/manufacturer/john-deere/model/8rx-370 https://www.tractorhouse.com/listings/farm-equipment/for-sal... Some combines just for the fun in it: https://www.tractorhouse.com/listings/farm-equipment/for-sale/list/category/1112/harvesters-combines/manufacturer/john-deere/model/s790 https://www.tractorhouse.com/listings/farm-equipment/for-sal...
- bryanlarsen 6y ago
  Autonomy is the game changer here. For $250K you can buy 5 of these little tractors and draw 5 12ft cultivators rather than a single 60 footer. Drive one manually to mark the headland and let the other 4 fill it in.
  - jelliclesfarm 6y ago
    Bingo! And no seasonal labour shortages. And you can control everything from something like. A game console.
  - bluGill 6y ago
    You wouldn't though because the one big tractor does less damage to the soil.
  - tonyarkles 6y ago
    Joking around a little bit, but I'm kind of curious if the autonomy function would let me summon it when I get my truck stuck. Way nicer than having to walk a few miles to go get the tractor...
pjc50 6y ago
Surprisingly large number of tractor injuries are overturning when operating on steep slopes, a category easily avoided by not having a driver.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- AnimalMuppet 6y ago
  It would be nice if the electric could detect that circumstance (overturning) and shut itself off...
bri3d 6y ago
There are a lot of operations that use midsized utility tractors extensively. This certainly won't replace a large tractor in wheat, hay, corn, and soy (plowing, disc, mowing, bailing, etc.) but can definitely replace utility tractors in orchard/vineyard spraying, CSA and organic farm style mixed-crop cultivation, etc. Think more California than Nebraska.
bryanlarsen 6y ago
Before electric motors, factories used to have a single giant coal engine that used pulleys and crankshafts to distribute that power all across the factory. When electric motors became available, they replaced that single giant coal engine with a single giant electric motor. They got their lunch eaten by people who built new factories with electric motors at every station, distributing the power using wire. These tractors are autonomous, you can have multiple tractors per operator. 5 50hp tractors are probably cheaper and more capable and easier to run by a single operator than a single 250hp diesel monster.
- throwaway0a5e 6y ago
  >50hp tractors are probably cheaper and more capable and easier to run by a single operator than a single 250hp diesel monster. 5 50hp tractors are in no way cheaper than one 250. Soooo many more duplicated systems and stuff to maintain and repair. With the fleet of small tractors you have like 4x the number of hours tied up in service. And before anyone say "hurr durr muh electric" I would advice you to google up some small machine manuals, look at the service intervals and see what you'll be doing the most of. Electric motors don't mean you can throw out your grease gun. The bulk of the hours on heavy equipment maintenance are spend on the business ends of the machine that take the abuse, attachments and drive-train, not engine/trans.
Yetanfou 6y ago
Both tractors I use have around 68hp on the engine, ~65hp on the PTO. Both have front loaders, one of them has an excavator on the back. I run them in the fields (mowing, turning, baling, etc.) and in the forest (logging, skidding, forwarding, etc.). Tractors do not need huge engines to be useable on the farm, this is only needed for 3-swathe mowers, 10-row ploughs, high-speed baler/wrappers etc.
tsomctl 6y ago
There's a difference between peak horsepower output and continuous horsepower output. A normal passenger car might be able to put out 300 hp, but only for a short period of time before blowing the headgasket (or destroying the drive train). Diesel engine with gobs of torque or electric is going to produce that power at a lower speed and more efficiently, so it will be able to do it longer. Being able to put out 70hp nonstop for hours on end is nothing to be ashamed of.
- sandworm101 6y ago
  A modern engine will run at full hp for extended periods, hundreds of hours. In many ways, lower power settings at lower rpms can be harder on engines than running flat out. In a family car, the cooling system would drop the ball long before anything as substantial as a head gasket. It would overheat long before any actual damage.
  - tsomctl 6y ago
    Hundreds of hours, perhaps. But not for the entire life of the engine. If a modern passenger car engine could put out 200 hp nonstop for years on end, every semi-truck manufacturer would be putting a BMW engine in it, instead of a huge cast iron Cummins. But I'm pretty sure you'd spin a bearing, or wear out the cylinder liner, or burn a valve.
    - throwaway0a5e 6y ago
      If you tuned a semi engine for peak power the way automotive engines are they wouldn't last 400k either. You can get automotive engines with similar power to weight or power to displacement numbers as semi truck engines. They're just normal automotive engines sold for industrial use.
      - tsomctl 6y ago
        I guess I’m not articulating myself well, because I’m basically agreeing with you.

GlenTheMachine 6y ago

No front-end loader. Less torque than a John Deere. Lame. \s

mu5tach3 6y ago
The informations are quite rare, but one of their Youtube videos mentions "the ability to connect a front load" (https://youtu.be/xcpi4vR-_44?t=334 https://youtu.be/xcpi4vR-_44?t=334)
- recursive 6y ago
  It's a reference to this. https://slashdot.org/story/01/10/23/1816257/apple-releases-ipod https://slashdot.org/story/01/10/23/1816257/apple-releases-i...
monarchtractor 6y ago
Hey Glen, our tractor has an optional front end loader and has 2x the torque of tractors in our class. Would love to give you more details feel free to connect at info@monarchtractor.com
- GlenTheMachine 6y ago
  ‘Twas a joke! This is what “they” said about the iPod when it was released. https://slashdot.org/story/01/10/23/1816257/apple-releases-ipod https://slashdot.org/story/01/10/23/1816257/apple-releases-i...

zaroth 6y ago

Once John Deere starting DRM’ing their tractors it just screams entrenched monopoly. But where’s the barrier to entry? AI is going to dramatically alter this competitive landscape and John Deere’s DRM is not going to to stop it. Honestly, I love watching these companies drive nails into their own coffins. I was on the Google homepage today on my iPhone and was getting popups advertising Chrome (on the homepage!) and then again in the search results advertising the Google app. I changed my default to DDG right then and there. Seriously, it’s like 4 taps. Settings > Safari > Search Engine > DDG. Don’t support these shitty companies and just watch them burn themselves to the ground. It might take 10 years but consumers ultimately will be the arbiter.

badconvincer 6y ago
It’s not enough to exist. You actually have to perform at least comparably, which DDG doesn’t unfortunately.
- monadic3 6y ago
  DDG is fine for many types of queries. It also doesn't have many of (what I consider) the drawbacks of google's search: hostile ad positioning, AMP, autoscraped meta crap. Pretending you can't compare them is ridiculous.
- nxmnxm99 6y ago
  Yeah I've tried DDG reliably for nearly a year. A good 30% of the time I end up having to run my query on Google anyway. I will literally pay money for a search engine that's privacy focused and can get closer to Google in terms of performance.
  - danwills 6y ago
    I reckon I'd pay for that too, actually sounds really, really awesome (assuming the performance is there)
  - nanna 6y ago
    Personally I need to switch from ddg to Google maybe 0.1% of my searches, but at least for you you've managed to avoid Google 70% of the time, and it's not like adding a !g to do so takes more a milisecond.

whizzkid 6y ago

+ Really good idea to make use of the electricity in other ways than just driving. (generators, lamps, etc.) + 10 hours covers up a good day in field. - a lot of farms are away from electricity sources to charge and sometimes internet connection is non-existent. It is risky to leave a 50k machine on its own to do its job. And what to do if battery runs out on the field? - how long does it take to recharge? A lot of farmers will not have fast charges on their farm.

asutekku 6y ago
Charging overnight + installing solar panels near the fields will solve problem. Of course it’s easier said than done, but changing processes will lead to the solution.
- salty_biscuits 6y ago
  It would be perfect if the autonomy worked well in the dark, then it could just work at night and then charge during the day.
  - koolba 6y ago
    I’ve seen lawn mowers that do that. No solar charging, but it does cut grass in the dark. It’s actually pretty creepy to see the head light pop out from behind a corner.
    - MereInterest 6y ago
      That sounds awful from a noise perspective. I live across the street from a shopping center, and they tend to do all of their cleaning late at night, to avoid disturbing customers. No care at all for the sleep of neighbors when running leaf blowers at 11 PM.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      - 6y ago

jelliclesfarm 6y ago

I invited the CEO to my farm and we had a chat about their plans. I am impressed that they launched exactly what he said that they would...it seems to me that they are the only ones in the Agrobotics market(and I know/have spoken to 15-17 of them worldwide) who can scale because they have a solid plan and can ramp up. And they will be affordable. They have ticked all the boxes that create the (manufacturing) bottlenecks for every other Agbot start up/company out there.

monarchtractor 6y ago
Thank you for the support Jelliclesfarm! It was great coming out and look forward to following up!

loosescrews 6y ago

It seems like a farm could increase their productivity by letting these run autonomously at night and continuing to use human drivers with their old equipment during the day.

mattnewton 6y ago
Or buy multiple to alternate, and just keep a mechanic and a tiny fraction of your prior workforce around for special cases

LinuxBender 6y ago

Nice! Are they going to spread out into other areas? Drilling rigs? Muckers? Something to replace the Sandvik rigs and fully automate drilling and blasting would be cool. They are already partially automated (pattern, depth) but require a human to operate. I think getting humans out of mines should reduce insurance costs and health risks.

gbuk2013 6y ago
They are actively testing self-driving combine harvesters in Russia, which makes perfect sense: large fields without too many random objects and mind numbing work for a human pilot. https://www.foodandfarmingtechnology.com/news/autonomous-vehicles/russias-self-driving-combine-harvester-works-flawlessly.html https://www.foodandfarmingtechnology.com/news/autonomous-veh... Also big-ass mining trucks: https://techacute.com/zyfra-huawei-5g-test-autonomous-mining-trucks-russia/ https://techacute.com/zyfra-huawei-5g-test-autonomous-mining...

paulkrush 6y ago

Anyone have good, in production, examples where equipment has gotten smaller than before because a human no longer needs to operate it?

danielheath 6y ago
Predator drones?
- paulkrush 6y ago
  Well robots to carry camera/sensors are clearly a good answer to my question. I would say a rumba is a weak answer.
bluGill 6y ago
Bet on bigger. Soil compaction is not linear with weight, but a heavy tractor has less tire tracks over a field. Thus the bigger the tractor the better for the soil.

Simulacra 6y ago

This is fascinating but I'm surprised by how little progress we've made in automating farm work. There have been articles about how complicated it is for a computer to pick vegetables and fruits, and how nothing compares to the human hand. How long will it be before we see robots take over the field, displacing seasonal workers? https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2018/03/20/592857197/robots-are-trying-to-pick-strawberries-so-far-theyre-not-very-good-at-it https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2018/03/20/592857197/ro...

opinion-is-bad 6y ago
Between 1970 and 2013, the % of Americans working in agriculture dropped from 4.4 to 1.5. I’d say we have continued to make excellent progress, it’s just not as sexy as robot fruit pickers.
- Animats 6y ago
  Yes. Almost everything in farming of major crops has been mechanized for years, if not decades. Fruit picking is still a problem, but it's slowly being cracked. In the more advanced countries, cow milking and meat cutting is done by robots. The US is starting to catch up.[1] Advanced technology from New Zealand is finally reaching the US. The countries that don't have a supply of low-wage illegal immigrants are ahead in advanced ag technology. [1] https://www.robots.com/applications/meat-processing-automation https://www.robots.com/applications/meat-processing-automati...
  - opinion-is-bad 6y ago
    Our farm purchased several New Zealand asparagus sorting machines back in the 90s and they were quite excellent. They would size the spears by laser, and could do color analysis as well. There was still a significant manual component, but half the workers could manage the same throughput. Sadly we no longer use these machines, as there is no market for growing asparagus in the US these days. Labor costs have caused all the acreage to move into Mexico. I’m not sure I’d agree the US is overall behind in automation compared to other countries, but I think we probably do have automation in different places. Farm labor is certainly not cheap in California. Our blueberry pickers averaged about $23 an hour this year. I admit I have no context for what would be an acceptable rate in New Zealand or Europe, but I can’t imagine it’s much more than that.

analog31 6y ago

Granted it's not one of the behemoth's that I see in the Midwest. But I would see a 10 hour run time as a limitation. My friends who raise corn & beans have described their work as being like flying a small plane: Hours of boredom capped off at the ends by a few moments of sheer terror. The opportunities to plant and harvest are dictated by the weather, and when it's good, they want to be running their machines around the clock if possible. Bad weather is a mess -- it multiplies effort and breakdowns exponentially.

ogre_codes 6y ago
It's 40HP, this is a small farm or utility tractor. The big harvesters and monster tractors they use for tilling 100s of acres at a time are a whole other league.
momokoko 6y ago
Is “Midwest behemoth” a common term in farming? I’ve seen two top level comments use it in this thread. Other top level comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25394576 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25394576
oliwarner 6y ago
It's only a limitation if you run one machine. These are cheap and employee-less. You just run a gang of them around the clock.

ogre_codes 6y ago

I would love to see something like this in the 20HP range with a front end loader. I love our 26HP Kubota, but would jump on electric in a heartbeat to get away from diesel machines.

cwkoss 6y ago

I want a 1/10th scale one for my garden.

lambdatronics 6y ago
Will this satisfy you? :D https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/rorymackean/tertill-the-solar-powered-weeding-robot-for-home-g https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/rorymackean/tertill-the...

orasis 6y ago

Heavy batteries are actually an asset in such scenarios because light tractors often lose traction when plowing compacted soil.

joshu 6y ago

I know these guys! They are a super impressive team. Wish I could have invested, but they'd already too expensive for for me...

blorenz 6y ago

This is quite an impressive machine coming out of a startup. I'm surprised by all the comments that expect them to go head to head with John Deere right out of the gate. This autonomous tractor is their entrance into the foyer of this Ag space. Sure it's not the Midwest behemoth that we have working the fields here in Ohio, but give them some years to get their tech in order to produce that. Bringing products to market is an expensive endeavor in time, money and resources. Personally, I've only dealt with software so I cannot imagine something of this nature. Good work with the Monarch and I'll be watching this space to see what you turn out.

edsonmedina 6y ago

Doesn't the added efficiency in plowing mean more carbon release from the soil (thus offseting any gains from not using diesel)?

justinlloyd 6y ago

Next up: A semi-autonomous backhoe and dozer that can intelligently dig a level bottomed hole to specific cubic dimensions with equipment accessible ramp and all the waste material piled neatly on the sides in safe and sane manner and then can also load that same material into a waiting dump truck. Can also work in a swarm of two or three machines for more effective material handling. All controlled by a remote operator whose sole job is to hit the stop button if he spots anything on the camera that shouldn't be there, e.g. an underground power line that wasn't mapped. Was a fun project to work on.

calabin 6y ago
You worked on a project like this? Sounds interesting! Are you able to tell us more, or if it was ever implemented?
- justinlloyd 6y ago
  Yes. No. Yes.
BHSPitMonkey 6y ago
Sounds like a task out of 'Surviving Mars' (and the kind of tech I expect to see up there for real in a decade or so, if a crewed expedition is ever to actually take place).
petra 6y ago
http://www.builtrobotics.com http://www.builtrobotics.com

jp0d 6y ago

Most farmers depend on their tractors for their livelihood. I reckon it'll be difficult to convince them to shift to electric ones that costs more and haven't got any long term reliability or efficiency reports. If anything, battery powered cars lose a lot of value as their battery capacities tend to decline over time. Also, unless their farm has heavily invested in solar power, they'd still have to use electricity from the grid. In a country like Australia most electricity is generated from coal. So that's not really helping the environment. The EV industry will only last as long as we don't figure out efficient production and transportation of Hydrogen. This is impressive use of ML though.

imtringued 6y ago
>t'll be difficult to convince them to shift to electric ones that costs more This electric tractor markets itself as having twice the torque of an ICE tractor of a similar size. This means you don't need a bigger more expensive tractor. >If anything, battery powered cars lose a lot of value as their battery capacities tend to decline over time. EVs lose in value because of government subsidies. The list price is $30k but you only have to pay $25k because of subsidies. Nobody is going go buy your used EV for more than $25k because they can get a new one instead.
- jp0d 6y ago
  I can understand why I got downvoted. I might have come across as an EV hater. I'm not one. I do appreciate the technology and acknowledge that it's the future. I was pointing out some of the flaws. I don't argue against the torque figures and everyone knows that EVs have more torque. Even the base model Teslas are faster off the line compared to some of the ICE super cars. I'm hopeful that we generate electricity from more renewable sources than burning coal or gas, which defeats the whole purpose. Long charging times, range anxiety and battery longevity are real issues for customers. I don't know if durability of electric motors for these sort of applications haven been proven yet. Hydrogen based EVs can fix most of these problem. But only if we can create Hydrogen more efficiently.
  - olau 6y ago

theraido 6y ago

This is a nice accomplishment, a step forward. But to some extends it's a step forward in a backwards system. It's a bit like the 'if cannibals start eating with forks, is it progress'-question. Agriculture has become a industry of scale, but that might be it's undoing. It might be better to have an electric tractor doing the ploughing, but wouldn't it be even better to do less ploughing? With the invention of fertilizers (which isn't bad in itself) we where able to scale, but we needed more fertilizer, the soil became more barren and devoid of soil life with every iteration. With heavier tractors we needed to lower the water level to not get stuck in the soft soils, the heavier tractors compacted the soils even more, so we needed heavier tractors to till en plough the soil again. Otherwise we couldn't force the same crop out of the soil year after year. When we're only looking at the economic outcomes of the agronomic industry, we're forgetting a few things. I work in IT, I work at an environmental NGO, I have an interest in agroecology, organic farming and such but I often feel it's an 'either/or' kind of thing. It's either locally sourced, community supported agriculture with a huge focus on soil restoration, resilience, crop rotation, diversity (polyculture? as opposite of monoculture) land access which attracts a specific crowd of people. Think leftist, anarchistic, community-oriented, spiritual-religious (which group I really like) but with a lot of menial/manual labor, a aversion of technology. Which can be explained by the centralistic nature of a lot of technology, and it often being focused on ‘vertical scaling’. Or it’s hip startups with sensor tech, drones, AI-platforms predicting where you’ll have te best results and use for example ‘variable-rate seeding’ and program your fleet of heavy tractors to automate it all. We’ve automated quite a lot in ‘beef production’, but maybe we should do less of that and focus more on finding solutions to scale horizontally? (Like we might need less humongous farms producing one specific product but more smaller farms producing various products). Hopefully this makes sense to someone ;)

goodcanadian 6y ago
Minimum till and zero till agriculture is already a thing. There is still a great need for tractors. Having grown up on a farm, I continually see people with an idea of agriculture that is massively out of date. Technology and techniques advance as they do in any industry. It's not perfect, and some farms are better than others, but farmers are continually striving to improve both for economic and for environmental reasons.

heisenbit 6y ago

We know electric drive trains are smaller and have more torque and allow very different architectures. But thinking about powered accessories I can see even more potential as placing an additional motor is way less material intensive than transmitting mechanical power.

lambdatronics 6y ago
And also safety! Power take-off injuries[0] can be really horrifying. [0]http://farminjuryresource.com/atv-injuries/farming-injuries/power-take-off-victims/ http://farminjuryresource.com/atv-injuries/farming-injuries/...