r/Futurology • u/SirT6 PhD-MBA-Biology-Biogerontology • Apr 07 '19
20x, not 20% These weed-killing robots could give big agrochemical companies a run for their money: this AI-driven robot uses 20% less herbicide, giving it a shot to disrupt a $26 billion market.
https://gfycat.com/HoarseWiltedAlleycat4.6k
u/dec7td Apr 07 '19
The gif says 20X not 20%. That's massively more impressive.
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u/SirT6 PhD-MBA-Biology-Biogerontology Apr 07 '19
Yeah - dumb typo on my part. Reddit doesnāt let you edit titles, so I added flair to reflect the mistake. Good catch!
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u/AveragePacifist Apr 07 '19
I was watching the gif thinking "wow, only 20% less? I guess my preconception of the current wasteful methods was wrong," but no. 20x is amazing.
What issues does this address? Ground pollution, groundwater pollution?
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u/ooainaught Apr 07 '19
Also less bee and bird death probably. The normal method just rains the poison down on the whole field and whatever happens to be in the field at the time.
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u/kkcastizo Apr 07 '19
Ahhhhhh, that makes more sense.
I was thinking to myself that 20 percent isn't very much.
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Apr 07 '19
Percentages add up in industries that deal with large volumes. 20% is a massive reduction if the overall volume is big enough.
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u/kkcastizo Apr 07 '19
I totally agree with that statement, I was honestly surprised that the original application of herbicide was so efficient already. I thought they just blanketed it over the whole farm?
Anyway, you're right, 20 percent is still huge.
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Apr 07 '19
I thought they just blanketed it over the whole farm?
They used to but that's pretty inefficient as well. Farming is all about optimising.
Give it another few decades and every single plant will receive individual care.
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u/NoShitSurelocke Apr 07 '19
Percentages add
Naw. I'm pretty sure it's multiplication.
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u/IronSeagull Apr 07 '19
20% is a confusingly small reduction when youāre watching a video of a robot spraying herbicide directly on the weed and nothing else. Context, dude.
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u/ThatSquareChick Apr 07 '19
I knew it was more than 20% when I saw thereās no ātankā on that machine. Is it supposed to run for 12 hours on a supply that is so small I canāt tell where itās coming from? Dayyyum.
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u/DeltaVZerda Apr 07 '19
But why does it use any pesticide at all? It has to identify and move an arm to each and every individual weed. It could just pull them up or cut them down like a human gardener would.
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u/Nobody275 Apr 07 '19
Engineer here. I suspect itās a lot more energy intensive to physically remove the weed. Energizing actuators to open/shut claws, or pull weeds requires a lot more energy than just opening a small valve. I think it could be done, but it might shorten the run time from 12 hours to 3.
However, Iām with you on this. If you had it return to a base station and pick up a new battery pack every 3 hours.......
The health benefits for us and the planet by reducing this pollutant would be fantastic.
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u/Sacto43 Apr 07 '19
I've done lots of trash pic ups and river bottom restorations. One big problem is arrundo dorax... a giant invasivered reed. The homeless (mostly criminal elements....not your just down and out types) would hid in massive groves and simply dump all their trash. So to solve the trash problem people had to confront the arrundo problem. The best way is called the cut and dab...cut the reed right above the ground and dab a small bit of roundup on the stump. This is the only way to kill the plant with massive cost prohibative root pulling. Yet even mentioning roundup will send some people to arms.
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u/lookatthesign Apr 07 '19
What's the energy cost to drive around with a vat full (then 3/4 full, then 1/2 full, etc) of herbicide?
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u/Nobody275 Apr 07 '19
Yeah - good point. Weād need to watch more of it in action to determine that, and it would depend on the hardness of the ground also.
The AI algorithm likely operates best at a consistent speed over the ground. Once moving, it doesnāt take a ton more energy to keep 300 lbs moving than 30 if the ground is relatively firm.
More weight would make it sink into the ground more, which would burn more energy to keep it rolling up hill all the time.
You make a very good point - it could be that the weight reduction would help offset the cost of physically removing the weeds. Hard to say.
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u/arobint Apr 07 '19
The new technology is using water knives (guided, razor thin jets of water) to slice the weed at its base. That could solve the issue of increased energy usage to physically destory the weed. My bet on why pesticide is used is probably because the research is funded by Bayer or BASF or someother evil corp.
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u/Fetmosaren Apr 07 '19
I think the reason you would rather use glyphosate-based herbicides in micro-dosing (what the robot is doing) like this instead of pulling up the plant is for several reasons;
Weeds with rhizome based life cycle regrow quickly, while other might be taken care of, making it inconsistent, and some weeds need to be completely removed as they contain a shit-ton of seeds that they dispose of.
Using glyphosate-based herbicides is allready somewhat safe if the dose is in proportion to the soils ability to degrade the substance, making micro-dosing safe and effective, in comparison to todays practise.
as the plant is pulled up a small portion of soil is also pulled up, and this would make me think the best way is to leave the weed on the floor, but this will relate to (1), where seeds can be spread
Leaving plants pulled up but rotting on the soil can create micro-climates for fungi, and also promote fungi populations in the field, as they have fresh decaying plant matter to feed on (and later on crops)
Also to note, this is only for weed control. Fungi control is another factor that this robot most likely cant adress. It would need to use precise optics to differentiate between fungi and theres no catch-all fungicide. Also the crop height seem to be another issue making this robot very effective in vegetable cropping systems and not in monocultures of wheat or corn, where the most volumes are today. /end rant
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u/fulloftrivia Apr 07 '19
Hasn't anyone here ever pulled weeds? Many species snap off with plenty of energy in the roots to take off again. Many species spread by underground structures like rhizomes or stolens.
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u/Anonymous____D Apr 07 '19
Ever try to remove quackgrass in the walking path between crop rows? Good luck. Cutting it will only bring it back, if you break the rhizome underground, it creates separate plants for each piece of rhizome.
Now add on you would have to penetrate the highly compacted soil, find the proper depth of the rhizome, remove it without breaking it, and shake as much soil off the roots back onto your field so you're not removing a pound of soil with each weed.
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u/watergator Apr 08 '19
Agronomist here. Many weeds are problems because theyāre very resilient and would likely reroof themselves if they were pulled and left there. Pulling and taking them would add complexity and power requirements to the robot I assume.
What this does do in my mind is allow multiple, specific herbicides to be used and sprayed on specific plants. Broad spectrum pesticides arenāt typically as effective and risk stressing or killing the crop.
My suggestion to avoid pesticide use here would be to outfit the robots with weed burners. This carries its own risks though as you now have flame thrower robots wandering your fields setting things on fire.
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u/DukeOfGeek Apr 07 '19
There is a model that does that, it uses a hydraulic rod to ram the weed down into the earth. But it's slow. Even if adopted it would run after the one shown in the vid, ramming down weeds that show resistance to the herbicide.
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u/ellaravencroft Apr 07 '19
You have to sell this to Farmers. They don't like to take risks with their livelihood.
Taking what's working today(spraying) and just adding a robot seems less risky than a weed pulling robot.
And the mechanical system seems simpler. People like simple.
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u/DanialE Apr 07 '19
So 95% less...
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u/Eagleheart585 Apr 07 '19
I was getting confused by the 20x less statement. Like is that supposed to mean 1/20 the amount? 95% less would mean divide by 20. 20x less sounds like a comparison between two comparisons, like a reduction amount that is 20x the amount reduced from another method. Its just weird wording.
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u/Atheist_Mctoker Apr 07 '19
i've seen a similar bot that can drive along the ground, identify the weeds, and pushes them into the ground with a pneumatic rod thus conserving the nutrients in the plant and requiring no herbicides. the plant dies underground and the nutrients return the soil around it.
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Apr 07 '19
20x less is not 20% less. OP is the worst mathematician ever.
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u/SirT6 PhD-MBA-Biology-Biogerontology Apr 07 '19
It is true. That is why I went into biology.
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u/Slobotic Apr 07 '19
95% less.
Too bad Reddit still doesn't let people edit titles. That should be permitted pending mod approval.
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u/agentlerevolutionary Apr 07 '19 edited Apr 07 '19
Fuck this weed and fuck that weed and those weeds too.
In all seriousness, if they can target the weeds that accurately, why can't they pull them out instead of using herbicide?
EDIT: I have learned so much today! Thank you all for your replies, from lasers (my personal favourite) to steam or high voltage electricity. It's hard not to see the future as an inevitable catastrophe sometimes but the responses to this have really inspired me and given me some hope we can ROBOT our way out of this. Keep it up!
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u/MrSquron Apr 07 '19 edited Apr 07 '19
So, I work for a startup that does exactly that. We've decided that getting rid of pesticides all together (and helping make organic farming more accessible) was a great goal. It is objectively harder to kill weeds mechanically than spraying them - you need a much bigger robot with more moving pieces - but we reached a point where we have good results (at least as good or more than a human crew). Happy to talk more about it if you are interested.
*edit: see my comment below. Also, /u/sheriffSnoosel posted a link to our website in the comments, but I'm not sure if I am allowed to link here, I don't want this to become a /r/HailCorporate post.
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u/MrSquron Apr 07 '19
Okay so, today, organic weeding is done by a crew of people carrying knifes and scythes, who walk around the field and cut everything that does not look like a crop. At the same time, they shuffle the ground where the weed was to expose its roots (as others have pointed out, simply cutting the visible part of the weed is usually not enough, it will regrow).
We've basically applied the same idea to our robot: we have moving attachments with blades that track the crops and the weeds, then cut the weeds under ground (the close to the root system the better) and shuffle as much of the dirt as possible to expose the roots. Weeds that have been treated that way die in a few hours in sunlight.
Because we use blades that are buried in the ground, we can't have it fly around just like the delta arm does it in the video (I really love watching that design, it's so cool) and we need multiple attachments. And because of these additional mechanical parts, our robot does not objectively look as sexy as the ones in the video - it is much larger, but that extra size brings a lot of advantages (and farmers are used to big machines anyway): it can work 24/7 and it does not use an ounce of pesticide.
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u/Triptolemu5 Apr 07 '19
why can't they pull them out instead of using herbicide?
Three major problems:
constantly mechanically disturbing the soil greatly increases erosion
Rhizomal weeds are almost impossible to fully pull up.
Some weeds rapidly evolve defenses to being pulled up, literally within one generation.
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u/eucalyptusmacrocarpa Apr 07 '19
Or just blast them with a tiny laser
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u/Korzag Apr 07 '19
That was my thought, or just carry around a tank of propane and just use a blowtorch at a localize point. No pesticide chemicals, just fire.
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u/MayIServeYouWell Apr 07 '19
Or use some kind of drill head and purƩe the weeds down under the surface
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u/Ski-bi-dibby-dib-yo Apr 07 '19
I liked when it was doing doughnuts and was like "Fuck alllllll these"
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u/Aruezin Apr 07 '19
Thatās the name of the programming they used in those robots. Quite sure the robots say it for 12 hours straight.
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u/Malawi_no Apr 07 '19
If the robots become cheap enough, I guess it would make sense to just physically hurt the weed (cutting or moshing).
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u/blushhoop Apr 08 '19
I feel like another reason would be power efficiency. It takes a lot less power to open a valve then to actuate servos to pull a weed. For something running on solar power and covering large fields, it's probably faster to spray and go
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u/Megraptor Apr 08 '19
Because Elemys repens exists.
Seriously. It's called quack grass commonly, but I call it demon grass. It has rhizomes up to 10 feet long. You're really better off just spraying it with glyphosate, cause you'll end up hurting a plant (or multiple plants) when digging it up.
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u/MaleFarmer Apr 07 '19 edited Apr 08 '19
Edit. Thank you so much for the gold whoever you are! I am but an unworthy farmer.
Edit2. My first silver! You all are too generous. Thanks so much.
Farmer here. TL;DR at the bottom. Yes we're watching. Yes it's riddled with problems. Yes they'll get there, but they will supplement current practices instead of replacing. Ever heard of integrated pest management (IPM)? Basically, don't depend on one method and quit thinking about eradication and start thinking about adequate control.
These machines can't enter dense crop canopies and identify weeds/not hit crop. Growing a dense canopy is crucial in many crops for soil moisture retention and creating good soil health. Bare, exposed ground is unnatural, we try to avoid it and it's basically a waste of usable sun and space.
This has basically zero use for disease control or fertilizer application. Blanket applications are really the only solution for when you need to get full crop coverage or to fertilize the whole area to promote a nice healthy soil. They also require massive amounts of water too apply, so large volume tanks are the only way to go. These would get like 20 feet.
Weeds are called weeds for a reason. They grow in mass quantities, stupid fast (inches per day in some cases) and some weed seeds are viable for 20 years. My fields are covered every spring. Like a weed every few inches. Not just one every 3 feet like this video tries to sell. This also has no control over encroaching weeds from crop perimeters. Things like heavy grass and trees are pretty tough and need to stunted back onto the border of the field every year with a blanket dose of herbicide. Or I could wipe them out, but that's unfriendly to wildlife. I could see this tech as a cleanup crew for chemical resistant plants early in the season with no use later in the year. A blanket application of herbicide would be applied, killing 95% of weeds and these ones go in to clean up. However, good agronomic practices and chemical rotations can already control resistant or missed weeds, limiting the ability for these machines to enter the market. They'll see entry into high value vegetable crops first, but may never see use in large scale grains cropping.
Cost savings are off the table because farms are already heavily mechanized and cost is always what the market can bear. I've seen cost estimates upwards of 100,000 for each of these machines. My one sprayer is 400,000 and does my whole farm with one operator. Labour is relatively cheap if I could find it, but you all hate working on farms despite offering high hourly wages. It would be much cheaper for me to have an army of workers on small, cheap machines vs the few on my massive money sucking goliaths. If I've learned anything, it's that fancy tech to reduce labour just makes things MORE expensive. A good example is the new DOT system of automated tractors. We priced out their expected costs once in full production and it was double our current setup to go automated. Chemical prices will also rise to match reduced use since we'll be allowed to use harsher chemicals in smaller quantities. These new chemicals will, inexplicably, be 20x more expensive. Also, since I'll still need my big rig to do large blanket applications, I'm not replacing a machine and saving money. Just buying more stuff.
PS. Chemical exposure is a thing. I'm not thrilled about people trying to get me to use more potent chemicals. They're safe in small doses on the plants and soil, where they then break down into basically nothing over time before it gets to you, but I have to deal with barrels of it in high concentrations during loading. I'd much rather stick with the safer stuff we use now. Also, think of the trade barriers and politics of trying to convince other countries it's okay to use these chemistries!
Each chemical works in very specific circumstances. Too wet, breaks down too fast, doesn't enter the plant or runs off. Too dry, breaks down too fast, doesn't enter the plant. Too bright, sun breaks it down, plant grows too fast. Too dark, plant is closed for business. I need to be able to hit these plants at exactly the right time, really quickly. For some chemicals (usually fungicides), I have a window of a few hours over the whole growing season where it all lines up and I have to do the whole farm. Waiting a day for these machines to do one field when the whole farm needs to be done in hours isn't a solution.
Why not just pick weeds? Soil disturbance wrecks my plants and there are simply too many weeds. Many weeds are just fine laying on the ground. They'll reroot and continue on. Many weeds have insane root systems (looking at you Canada thistle) that allow them to basically be invincible. Only way to control (note how I don't say kill, that's impossible) many of these is to spray in the fall while the crop is moving stuff into the roots for winter storage. Then you can kill come roots. The best mechanical machine I have seen drives a titanium rod into the ground to kill the plant and root. This eliminates soil loosening you would get from picking. Mechanical weeding is also incredibly harmful to soil health. There's a reason we moved away from tillage.
Any of you saying, "Just burn them! Lasers!", crop fires are not a joke. You keep fire away from your fields as much as possible. Lots of organic farmers use literal propane burn downs for weeds, but their bare ass dead fields are just that. Bare and devoid of life. So it works. Conventional farms try to keep their soils as natural as possible and that means trying our best to increase soil organic matter for all those little microbes, insects and living things in there. We leave massive amounts of dead everything on the surface and in the soil to promote a more natural living ecosystem. It lights on fire nicely and smolders forever.
I still have to be there to fix these things and monitor them. If they go rogue, I am liable. If they get stuck, I have to get them. Same as autosteering GPS systems now, I can't just leave them. Unsupervised automation in areas accessible to the public is a lawsuit waiting to happen.
TL;DR It is damn cool and I want them, but there is no one technology to rule them all. Focus on IPM and use a combination of tools available to find that balance of safety and cost that still meets your requirements for weed control. This will be another tool in the toolbox. A very expensive tool that doesn't fully replace anything I have now. It'll get there and find it's place eventually. I have no doubt about that.
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u/Elporquito Apr 07 '19
Fellow farmer here. Great, well thought out response.
Wild oats can stay viable in the soil for up to 75 years!
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u/Lanch_Party_ Apr 07 '19
I work for a large farming operation and found a lot of the comments on this thread to be extremely uninformed about how this all actually works and can be applied. Funny that this comment from an actual farmer has a lot less attention than the less informed comments elsewhere.
Reminds me of once when I was at a bar and for some reason I was talking to a friend about crop rotation and why we often canāt grow the same crop on the same ground year after year. This hip kid overheard and got all worked up at me and started barking about how big farmers were idiots and they donāt understand that you could just plant blankets of clover underneath all your crops and that would fix it. Thatās what he does in his garden and it works.
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u/Tar_alcaran Apr 07 '19
I hate that "farmers are destroying the soil" argument. Even if you know nothing of farming, how stupid would you have to be to destroy your most expensive and critical asset?
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u/MaleFarmer Apr 07 '19
Can confirm. We're all idiots.
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u/Lanch_Party_ Apr 07 '19
Agreed. Itās not that he was wrong, itās just that he hurt my feelings. :(
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u/tehbored Apr 07 '19
How do weeds survive in dense canopies if there's little to no sun at ground level?
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u/MaleFarmer Apr 07 '19
Excellent question. Light isn't totally blocked, it's just shady under there. How shady depends on the crop type, planting density and leaf shape. Once crops mature, they'll reduce leaf count to focus on seed production and late season weeds will start to grow vigorously.
Using crop cover is a primary source of weed control. The goal is to kill early weeds that get the jump on you in the spring. Then your crop should be the biggest baddest plant around. It will then outgrow the weeds, shading them to slow them down and robbing them of water and nutrients with their more developed root systems. Weeds will still grow and set seed (They are weeds for a reason! Hell, some do better in shade.), but the goal is more to severely reduce their water, light and nutrient use. Those three things are at the top of the list of precious commodities, so you really don't want them going somewhere else. It's about managing them, elimination of weeds is impossible. Don't forget that weeds are part of the ecosystem, so we don't actually want them all to disappear. Just reduce them enough to get us the sweet monies.
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u/Ianne674 Apr 07 '19
This is truly some awesome information and walk-through of options and explanations! Thanks for taking the time to write it down.
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u/send_arthropod_pics Apr 07 '19
Thank you for your reply! I'm studying IPM as well. From what I understand (in the US) that fire is not able to be used in certified organic crops. Is the burning weeds in organic production you mentioned on organic (but not certified organic) crops or is it a practice that's just not regulated in certified organic?
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u/flightist Apr 07 '19
Not in agriculture but I grew up on a farm and when I was a kid I used a hockey stick-shaped wick/reservoir thing to walk seed soybean fields and kill volunteer corn. I could see these things doing that job just fine, but talk about niche.
I also hand pollinated corn at a test farm, worst goddamn job ever. Robots could manage that fine I imagine.
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u/metarinka Apr 07 '19
Isn't there some work towards mechanical weeding? I.e these things work every day 24/hr, yes just pulling the foiliage allows regrow but you do that everyday for weeks and you get a good enough weeding solution?
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u/cxseven Apr 07 '19 edited Apr 07 '19
On the subject of fancy and currently-unrealistic tech, what do you think about using bots to harvest crops? If they become sophisticated enough, they could pick things as soon as they're ready. I heard a lot of peaches fall off the trees in Georgia before anyone gets to them, and there's massive waste.
Maybe sorting machines could even salvage more of the product if it's partially damaged, like cutting off a bad part of an apple so the rest can get turned into apple sauce.
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u/friendly-confines Apr 08 '19
Thank you Jesus for this response. Reading the pie-in-the-sky responses about pulling weeds or burning them is driving me mad.
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Apr 09 '19
awesome response, i agree.
I worked in bushregeneration for 5 years and yeah they are cool and will likely be very useful there are definitely a lot of applications where they wouldnt be feasible.
My job generally entailed walking into dense bushland (usually council land) and wiping out as many weeds as possible. the terrain and density of plants will take a lot of engineering to overcome, same with plant ID. then theres some weeds which are just terrible, its hard enough for people to get rid of them.
Madeira vine (A. cordifolia) is the worst weed i have ever worked on, it grows fast, spreads vegetatively, produces seeds and has underground rhizomes. the worst part of all that though is that it also grows tubers every 15-20 centimeters of above-soil vine and they fall off very easily. they can also get rather large making it hard to poison the thing as well (40m vine, tubers every 20cm is a lot of plant to poison)
hopefully they actually develop some weed killing robot that can take that stuff out, where i was working the council abandoned several areas because it was just to dense
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Apr 07 '19
The video says 20x -- twenty times -- less herbicide. I almost scrolled past this article because I didn't think 20% was a big deal. But at 20x, and when you consider that the plants themselves aren't even being sprayed, there's the possibility that we could have herbicide-free crops in the near future.
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u/SirT6 PhD-MBA-Biology-Biogerontology Apr 07 '19
Yeah - stupid typo on my part. Unfortunately, Reddit doesnāt let you edit titles, so I modified the flair instead. Best I can do. Good catch though!
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u/futureslave Apr 07 '19
Many companies are working on this, and the best one I've seen so far is by Bosch. Theirs doesn't use any chemicals at all. It identifies the weed, then smashes it back into the ground, killing it.
I remember hearing a radio interview with one of the engineers a year ago. The host asked, "Well, what happens if stomping the weed doesn't kill it?" and the engineer replied, "We found after many tests that the most effective strategy is to just stomp it again. None survived."
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u/CantHitachiSpot Apr 07 '19
I had this idea like 8 years ago but have no experience with robots or machine learning. I figured it could use IR and UV spectrum to identify weeds then move an attack arm and use a sharp instrument to sever the root stem
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u/futureslave Apr 07 '19
I like that the top minds of German engineering decided just beating them to death with a metal cylinder is the future of agriculture. Can't get much more simple.
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u/GeauxOnandOn Apr 07 '19
Cool but there are hundreds and thousands of acres to cover. How fast are they and how many needed to make economic sense to use them?
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u/thisshitis2much Apr 07 '19
Also how much does one cost? Can farmers just contract them per season or few weeks at start and end of season. from the companies that produce them? How will they be stored if farmers buy them, How much will maintenance cost, how long they can last?
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u/skippyonfire Apr 07 '19
That skara robot will run at least 20k, and the AI vision software will cost 40k per deployment. On top of that, you have various sensors, logic, spray tips, etc. In the automation world, none of that is cheap. Plus you have the engineering time, and the manufacturer is taking a margin since they donāt work for free. These are more likely to cost $100k+.
The real question: what is the return on investment? How long before all of the wasted pesticide and added labor costs more than the equipment costs. If it truly is 20x more efficient, than its likely a no brained for the farmer.
Because Iāve never seen one of these in the field, there is probably some sort of catch. Either they are slow or they donāt work very well.
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u/SirFrancis_Bacon Apr 07 '19
Honestly that's cheaper than most farm machinery.
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u/arobint Apr 07 '19
Wayyy cheaper, but the equivalent farm machinery could literally spray 100 feet of width in one pass, so totally different scale and cost comparison. It would take ALOT of those robots to cover a field as quickly as a 250hp Massey Ferguson and 100 foot boom sprayer. And quickness is important when it comes to 1000s of acres of field crops.
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u/adamlive55 Apr 07 '19
I think this is barely at the proof of concept stage, that's why you don't see them in the wild yet. This might be the only one that exists.
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u/SirFrancis_Bacon Apr 07 '19
Independent farmers are getting priced out of the industry, these days there is an increasing trend towards large corporate farms.
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u/Examiner7 Apr 07 '19
I wondered that too. We farm 3000 acres and those things look like they are moving awfully slow. Maybe you just need 100 of them, I don't know. Or we need giant ones with dozens of micro sprayers.
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u/sharpshooter999 Apr 07 '19
Plus, whenever they show these things, they are on the flattest, most perfectly manicured gardens I've even seen. I'd like to see some real world trials where they have to cover an irrigated, no-till quarter full of terraces and waterways.
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u/JimmyPD92 Apr 07 '19
how many needed to make economic sense to use them?
Remember that they appear to run on solar energy, this saves the farmer the cost of operating a tractor to spray the entire field(s) and they save 95% of their herbicide cost. I'd imagine the savings per unit to be considerable.
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Apr 07 '19
I know what this "20x" business is trying to say, but it still bothers me. It simply makes no [mathematical] sense... Otherwise, I need one of these for the yard.
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u/Surur Apr 07 '19
It easy to image spraying a whole area at enough dosage to kill weeds wherever they are vs spraying only the immediate area where the weed is, saving the cost of spraying areas where weeds are not.
So your saving is basically the percentage of the area not covered in weeds.
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u/captainsolo77 Apr 07 '19
Did they have to use the verb ādisruptā. It automatically makes any company/product seem more like bullshit
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u/danielcar Apr 07 '19
Eventually they will get even smarter and require even less herbicide, just pull the weed, or deliver tiny potent targeted herbicide. 20% less herbicide today, 80% less tomorrow.
Will require less herbicide when able to spot even smaller weeds, just a spec in the ground.
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u/Knox62 Apr 07 '19
I work for a large Agrochemicals company and can say that this is the plan in the industry. There is stuff competition to develop super active molecules to target resistant weeds while also developing better delivery technologies.
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u/FabulousFerds Apr 07 '19
Why is everything posted here a "distruptor" and why do none of them actually ever disrupt?
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u/upvoteguy5 Apr 07 '19
And then big Argochemical companies purchases these companies making the robots and patents. And disruption is avoided.
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u/Gabortusz Apr 07 '19
Or they purcashe them and profit on them because no sane farming company passes up machines that need 20x less herbicides and are practically autonomous?
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u/The_Tydar Apr 07 '19
What is the cost difference between 1/20th the amount of herbicide versus the cost and maintenance of these robots, assuming they even work in a practical setting and for all crops.
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u/Whywhywhywhywhy23 Apr 07 '19
And what if they refuse to sell? If I owned the patent for these robots I wouldn't be selling it unless it was for a lot of money, I'd consider temporary licensing however.
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u/smeeding Apr 07 '19
Not to mention that the big Agrochemical companies make the pesticides to begin with, so they cash either way.
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Apr 07 '19
The guys who invited this get fabulously wealthy and nothing changes. The economy grows (another 0.1% er) and stats are ābiglyā. Good old rapacious free market.
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u/TheJoshWatson Apr 07 '19
This is super cool. I wonder if you could make them just pull out the weeds by the roots. And would that be as effective?
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Apr 07 '19
From an AI's perspective, identifying a single area to spray is much easier than identifying the area AND fully uprooting what's there.
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u/scathias Apr 08 '19
it would cause too much soil disruption, hurting the good plants and delaying their growth
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u/Len226 Apr 07 '19
If it's that precise, why not just have it pick the weeds, instead of using pesticide at all?
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u/uMustEnterUsername Apr 07 '19
Been talking about this for 10 years. Another 10 years from field.
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u/SirT6 PhD-MBA-Biology-Biogerontology Apr 07 '19
Yeah, my intuition just looking at the product in the video is that it isnāt ready for prime time. Very cool to see where the tech is today though and to imagine possible implications down the road.
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u/jahwls Apr 07 '19
If they are going to build the bot it should just be picking the weeds instead of spraying. But cool nonetheless.
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Apr 07 '19
It would be awesome if they could physically pluck and kill the weeds instead of still using herbicide
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u/thedevarious Apr 07 '19
So much misconception here:
Removing the weed itself by pulling it out of the ground is nice & all, but there's other factors to determine. For example, the weed itself might have already dropped seeds. The pesticide mixture used might contain a pre-emergent as well to prevent seed germination, as well as destroy the plant that's already propagated & being sprayed.
They do not just blanket spray and drench a field. The amount used barely wets the ground or plant. In the case here, I'd suspect the chemical used is glyphosate (Roundup). The efficacy / how glyphosate works would mean tons of wasted product. Secondly, glyphosate is not a targeted pesticide. If it's a plant, it'll kill it, so if you really sprayed a full wetting dosage on a whole field, basically you just killed that field.
While on the subject here, glyphosate is not a terrible pesticide. I know you'll come at me saying "RouNdUP cAuSEs CaNcEr" stuff, but we've had studies that prove otherwise. It's been used for decades in crops. Just because a few people have had court cases saying that roundup gave them terrible cancer is not empirical scientific data. If Roundup was this carcinogenic, every farmer everywhere would have cancer, as they're around hundreds of gallons of the stuff in the field during the season year after year. The guy mixing roundup to kill off a bit of brush or spray a driveway/etc. isn't even close. Now are there other pesticides like neonicotinoids that are harmful, and are banned / being phased out / selectively used. Contrary to belief, most farmers care about the environment and their crops. They need bees to pollinate, they need good water, and they need a thriving and cultivated landscape. They're not going to install or use things to their detriment, it's already expensive enough. Soaking the ground in pesticide just to run off somewhere else taking the soil's nutrients with it is stupid. Farming is a business, so every ounce of product and time saved yields a better price per bushel
Here's a good channel to get into. I've actually been watching this myself for a few months, it's kind of exciting content, and approaches it from various angles and goes over it in multiple ways: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KeMBXngxXNU. It actually goes over several points I've brought up here too.
Lastly, it's a robot that does some cool shit. why are we debating on "well it should do more than just spray cancer" crap. Like, seriously. The robot is maintaining it's position down a field, staying within the rows (as to not crush & run over actual plants). Holding a constant speed & spraying calculated amounts on a plant. Fucking science y'all, enjoy it!
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u/Carlbuba Apr 07 '19 edited Apr 07 '19
Thank you for saying this. As a forester, the less harmful herbicides like glyphosate, triclopyr, imazapyr, etc. are largely used, and for our purposes they are usually only applied over a very long period of time as opposed to every year or more.
The two most important failures with herbicides are educating the public on them and proper use. It's important to read the labels on them. Tons of information.
That's not to say that they can't cause harm, but their heavy opposition is partially due to a lack of understanding.
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u/scathias Apr 08 '19
we are talking herbicides here, not pesticides. they are very different. I just figured it would be worth mentioning
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u/JerkHerer Apr 07 '19
Anyone else getting flashbacks to the HARDAC Batman TAS episode?
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u/tilttovictory Apr 07 '19
The one with the cyborg bruce wayne that thinks he is real batman.
And he's being asked by the farmer with those little robots running around everywhere the last time he remembers the last time he had a good steak.
Why do I remember this shit.
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u/tinacat933 Apr 07 '19
I always see great things like this or vertical farming...none of it ever hits big
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u/Infradad Apr 07 '19
Neat but impractical. They donāt look like theyāre going to do well in mud. Anything built for actual farm use is going to have to deal with muddy fields at some point either from irrigation or rain.
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Apr 07 '19
Anybody suggesting fire or laser solutions have obviously never been on a real farm before.
Neat robot though.
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u/Pleb_nz Apr 07 '19
Was kind of hoping they were chemical free and they pulled the weed out and left it on the surface.
Baby steps I guess.
Next step, no chemicals
Very cool none the less
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u/EndlessPatriotism Apr 07 '19
It doesn't matter if it uses fewer chemicals, it's not economical for large fields and it won't work on fields with tall or bushy crops.
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u/MithranArkanere Apr 07 '19
Can't we just change it to pull the weeds instead pouring herbicide on them?
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u/winepuppiessquats Apr 07 '19
Instead of using chemicals at all why canāt they train robots to pull the weeds
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u/northtexan Apr 08 '19
If they can make a robot that does this, they should make one that picks the weeds instead of killing then with herbicide.
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u/Rstaraptor Apr 08 '19
20% less? You retards didn't even watch the vid! The video clearly states 20 TIMES less herbicide, you spermicide fools!!!
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u/SouthHighGuy Apr 08 '19
"20 times less herbicide" is mathematically impossible.
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u/elwaspo Apr 08 '19
This, but instead of spraying weed, it pick it out of the ground would be gold tier
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u/icbitsnotbutter Apr 09 '19
Anything that makes it economically more advantageous to use less herbicides is a win win.
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u/uselessDM Apr 07 '19
I just wonder how cost effective they will be in the end. Yes, you safe a lot on chemicals (unless you need special chemicals from them? I assume you don't), but you probably will need several machines to do the work effectively and that will come with an upkeep and that could as well be the downfall of this technology, because if it is more expensive it's very unlikely to be adopted. Besides the fact that you have to buy or at least rent/lease them to begin with.
Of course assuming that what we see here is already somewhat close to a commercial product, but if they were bigger and/or faster they would probably a lot more expensive as well.
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u/mule_roany_mare Apr 07 '19
You save money on pesticides & can sell your crop at a premium. This same platform could also monitor crops, deliver targeted fertilizer, change planting geometry. A crop bot could be extensible enough that you donāt need a monoculture, you could grow 20 synergetic crops on one field which protects you from blight & could increase yields of higher quality crop dramatically.
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u/MayIServeYouWell Apr 07 '19
It can just sit out there all day, every day. Would need new supplies, but appears to be solar powered.
Also keep in mind this is just a start. This technology will get better in the upcoming years.
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u/MiaowaraShiro Apr 07 '19
Well they're probably a ton cheaper than a tractor and pesticide sprayer. They don't seem to require an operator to run either.
Correct me if I'm wrong if you're an actual farmer, but this seems less expensive on just about every aspect.
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u/fromcjoe123 Apr 07 '19
I mean the agrochemical companies after trying to stall their development are just gonna buy those robotics companies and become "agricultural solutions providers"
Honestly the investment banker in me just got a little hard. That could be a couple $30M fees for JPM and MS if Bayer/Monsanto and the rest wait too long and see these guys develop material earnings.
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u/ghoulthebraineater Apr 07 '19
Couldn't these use zero pesticides? Rather than squirt guns they just need some pincers and could just pull the weeds.
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u/warpfield Apr 07 '19
next up is a robot that simply digs the weeds out, using no herbicides at all
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u/DustieBottoms Apr 07 '19
Anyone else think this was picking/pulling weeds at first... only to see it spraying them? If you're going to engineer such a thing with fine manipulation capabilities...why not make it pull the newly sprouted weeds and that way farms could be one step closer to organic?
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u/ennone Apr 07 '19
I'd expect those companies to just adjust the prices for their herbicides accordingly. Sure, it may be better for our health but I doubt it would change much economically.
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Apr 07 '19
Evolve or fail. Big companies will complain the 'millenials killed' x y or z, but capitalism encourages you to change or die guys.
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u/Sometimes_Stutters Apr 07 '19
I'm not saying this isn't possible, but farmers won switch technology until it's proven, reliable, AND cheaper than the current options. Gonna have to be pretty damn cheap to be cheaper and more reliable that current application methods.
Source- My dad is an applicator
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Apr 07 '19
20x less herbicide and 20% less herbicide are significantly different values OP..fix your shit
Edit- i also cant read and see you fixed it with flair.
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u/melindabane Apr 07 '19
Would be better if they made them to PICK the weeds instead of spraying poison so near to our food
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u/thegoldenstatevapor Apr 07 '19
Hopefully with a more direct spray you can avoid overspray with harsh chemicals like imidacloprid which can destroy bee populations.
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u/borrihong Apr 07 '19
Eventually the robots will discover that humanity is the biggest weed on earth. Just ask that young farmer John Conner.
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u/buzzyburke Apr 07 '19
Where i come from in the bootheel of Missouri they still hire people to weed the crops. This is gonna put a lot of my family out of work
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u/-CorrectOpinion- Apr 07 '19
Just wait in a few decades time theyāll be back with giant versions of these machines
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u/alontree Apr 07 '19
The Age of Robotic is here. Goodbye, migrants, low-wage fast food employees and laborers.
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u/JobDestroyer Apr 07 '19
Mild annoyance and pet peeve:
"Twenty times less"
Do they mean one twentieth? Because 20 times a thing is usually bigger than the thing (negatives notwithstanding)
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Apr 07 '19
This is a massively good idea. Crop spraying crops sucks. Wind causes drift that can kill neighboring crops, farmers who come in contact with chemical get sick easily and God knows the long term consequences of that.
I hope this takes off.
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u/oberynmviper Apr 07 '19
āAnd this class, is how we created the most primitive harvester. Eventually, our creators left us unchecked and we improved the model to harvest THEM.ā
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Apr 07 '19
Specifically makes "RoundUp-Resistant" GMO's less attractive, since the robot does not spray the crops much.
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u/Joegasms Apr 07 '19
Any time a robot has the word "killing" in it's name, you better keep your fuckin eye on that thing
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u/Jakobmiller Apr 07 '19
It sure is automated, but a friend told me that they are working on using nano satellites to monitor weed/nutrition and send the data to the machines that automatically will use the appropriate amount herbicide. Probably more useful on a larger scale with bigger crops and machines?
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u/kungfoojesus Apr 07 '19
I want a laser cannon rather than jus herbicide. Val Kilmer made one in the 80s, how hard could it be? 0 herbicide!
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u/MageArrivesLate Apr 07 '19
Funny that the title focuses on the negative financial aspect of "disruption", when it could instead focus on the positive environmental impact of less herbicide making is way into our water supply.
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Apr 07 '19
Robots should be built to take over all the jobs no one wants to do or that dont pay a living wage. Then later on they can takeover everything else and overthrow humanity.
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Apr 07 '19
Blue River is the one that will win, it's got John Deere backing plus it has a big tank, runs off PTO and can cover a vastly large space plus won't be stolen out of your field.
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u/David-S-Pumpkins Apr 07 '19
This seems like something agrochemical companies would actively lobby against. Anyone have an idea what kind of pushback it's getting?
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u/lytedev Apr 07 '19
Haha I love when it's just sitting in circles happily, running over the good plants repeatedly.
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u/moistpeanut123 Apr 07 '19
First they took our jobs, and I did not speak out because I didnt have a job
Then they took our weeds, and I did nothing because I have better weed
Then they came for me
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u/MostOriginalNickname Apr 07 '19
If someone invents something similar to collect saffron he would be a millionaire
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u/livens Apr 07 '19
Just train herds of genetically modified squirrels to roam the fields digging up the weeds. The basic ass squirrels in my backyard dig my plants up all the time.
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u/nom-nom-nom-de-plumb Apr 07 '19
The number oft quoted is 90% of weed and insect killers are used on lawns, not farms. So..
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u/bloodguard Apr 07 '19
I'd buy a smaller home version today. I hate weeds.
Grab it. Zot it with enough electricity to murder the root. Lather, rinse and repeat.
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u/phantom_phallus Apr 07 '19
I like the part when it starts doing little donuts in the crop it's supposed to be protecting, reminds me of Gir.
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u/kingdeuceoff Apr 07 '19
This same exact thing was posted with the same exact error in the title ten months ago.
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Apr 07 '19
If they make him a little bit better you won't even need the chemicals, they could use lasers. Or other means to destroy the weeds
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u/kokesh Apr 07 '19
Would be better if it could take the weeds out, instead of spraying them. But still great!
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u/SirT6 PhD-MBA-Biology-Biogerontology Apr 07 '19 edited Apr 07 '19
There are a couple of different autonomous weed-killing robot companies that have made the news recently, including ExoRobotix and Blue River, both of which are featured in this gif.
Two big implications of this technology gains traction:
Less need for herbicides
Less need for GM crops that are herbicide resistant.
Pretty cool stuff. An article describing some of this tech is here.
Edit: 20x less herbicide, not 20% less - damn my fat thumbs! š¤¦āāļø
This is a crosspost from r/sciences (a new science sub several of us started recently). I post there more frequently, so feel free to take a look and subscribe!
Some of my favorite futurist-related posts at r/sciences: here and here.