4 ms·

It feels like we’re in a bit of a nadir, agriculturally, in terms of soil exhaustion and erosion, crop monocultures, and so on, largely because of technology le

It feels like we’re in a bit of a nadir, agriculturally, in terms of soil exhaustion and erosion, crop monocultures, and so on, largely because of technology letting you do the same thing to bigger areas more quickly and with fewer people, and we’re reaching the end of the epoch where the cost of this can be blithely externalised. _However_, it seems like it could also be an inflection point, again because of technology. Imagine if tractors could tow behind them not a spraying trailer but a computer vision + laser system that could identify and zap individual weeds rather than napalming the whole ecosystem chemically, or that had arms that could pick only the correct, or ripe crop, or sub-varietal of crop, on a field planted with a variety of useful plants that balanced out the intensity with which they extracted nutrients from the soil. All of this at the cost/scale required to support the 8 billion (or so) people on the earth now with the agricultural land we have now, but perhaps too with the ability to open up more marginal bits of land to agriculture, and de-intensify the current wrung-to-death expanses of flat that we have to use now to accommodate the limitations of current farm machinery.

pests 3y ago
> a computer vision + laser system that could identify and zap individual weeds rather than napalming the whole ecosystem chemically > arms that could pick only the correct, or ripe crop, or sub-varietal of crop, on a field planted with a variety of useful plants I've seen demos for both of these in the last year or two.
bluGill 3y ago
Modern farmers using the best practices are building back soil not exhausting it. The typical practice since about 1980-1990 was holding the line, but research has found to how build up soil and a few farmers are employing it. While lasers are not used (yet?) you can now get sprayers that will spray chemical only on weeds and not the rest of the field. Or more likely you apply herbicide at a low dose across the whole field and then a high dose (possibly different chemical) where there is a weed.
Animats 3y ago
> Imagine if tractors could tow behind them not a spraying trailer but a computer vision + laser system that could identify and zap individual weeds. It exists. [1][2]. Robotic tractor, vision system, multiple 150W CO2 lasers. There is no such thing as overkill. It's really cool. "Certified Organic". A more practical approach is See and Spray.[3] Cameras and deep learning are taught to recognize and target enemy weeds. The sprayer has a valve for each nozzle, and it only zaps the weeds. Uses far less pesticide. For some crops a zap of spray fertilizer is used. The weeds overdose and die. That's now a John Deere product. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53Mma8IOEzc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53Mma8IOEzc [2] https://carbonrobotics.com/ https://carbonrobotics.com/ [4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XH-EFtTa6IU& https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XH-EFtTa6IU&

pests 3y ago

> a computer vision + laser system that could identify and zap individual weeds rather than napalming the whole ecosystem chemically > arms that could pick only the correct, or ripe crop, or sub-varietal of crop, on a field planted with a variety of useful plants I've seen demos for both of these in the last year or two.

bluGill 3y ago

Modern farmers using the best practices are building back soil not exhausting it. The typical practice since about 1980-1990 was holding the line, but research has found to how build up soil and a few farmers are employing it. While lasers are not used (yet?) you can now get sprayers that will spray chemical only on weeds and not the rest of the field. Or more likely you apply herbicide at a low dose across the whole field and then a high dose (possibly different chemical) where there is a weed.

Animats 3y ago

> Imagine if tractors could tow behind them not a spraying trailer but a computer vision + laser system that could identify and zap individual weeds. It exists. [1][2]. Robotic tractor, vision system, multiple 150W CO2 lasers. There is no such thing as overkill. It's really cool. "Certified Organic". A more practical approach is See and Spray.[3] Cameras and deep learning are taught to recognize and target enemy weeds. The sprayer has a valve for each nozzle, and it only zaps the weeds. Uses far less pesticide. For some crops a zap of spray fertilizer is used. The weeds overdose and die. That's now a John Deere product. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53Mma8IOEzc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53Mma8IOEzc [2] https://carbonrobotics.com/ https://carbonrobotics.com/ [4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XH-EFtTa6IU& https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XH-EFtTa6IU&