February 13, 2018

Robots in the Field – Online Videos Illustrate Automation from Seedling Production through Harvesting

When asked for the links to some of the videos I shared in this presentation at the 2018 NJ Agricultural Convention, I found that I had only included about half of the videos that illustrated my talk in the Proceedings book which will be available on the NJ Veg Crops Online Resources site shortly. What follows is the amended version of that abstract with all of the (complete) video links and/or company websites that I mentioned. It’s ‘complete’ now because I had used only small portions of many of these videos that are online, so you’ll have much more content to view than what you would have seen in my talk.

Rapid advances in computers, miniaturization, sensors (vision and other), and robotics are allowing innovative developments in the automation of labor-intensive horticultural crop farming that were once thought to be too expensive to employ except in large agronomic crop production. From seedling production through transplanting, plant monitoring, pest management right through to harvesting and post-harvest handling, this presentation will explore some of the new devices that are being introduced to the market now and in the near future to automate vegetable production.

Coupled with concerns about a stable labor supply and costs of labor in general, automation of many manual tasks, that has not been possible in the past, is receiving renewed attention by innovators from around the world. Exciting new tools will help farmers produce crops more efficiently and with less labor. Private and public engineers and horticulture researchers are combining efforts to provide solutions to critical tasks that are among the most time consuming, expensive and often monotonous requirements for growing fresh produce.

Some of the systems that will be reviewed in this presentation include:

Addendum

The following are additional tools & technologies included in the NJ Ag Convention & Trade Show presentation, but will not be included in the Proceedings.

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Filed Under: Commercial Ag Updates, Fruit, Vegetable Crops