High tech gardening? The future of farming?

[Elgatodeacero]

This company has an interesting product.

https://farmbot.io

All open source, and designed to be home 3d printed or made with simple tools.

Imagine one of these in every yard. Food for everyone!

[kingazteca]

I like the idea but on large scale farming, especially the part of precision watering save lots of water instead of spray it over the entire field. But as for farming on small plot like a community garden and home owners, seems like a lot of effort, time and money. I hope I'm wrong though, would love to see this take off.

[Michael in California]

Interesting concept. I think it would work best in a greenhouse. I can't see that working in real world outside conditions. Seems to gloss over lots of issues.

Seed planter only has one type of seed. User interaction required to change seeds. If your only planting 3 or 4 of each plant type. pick and place has no value.

If you harvest a few bibb lettuce, I reckon you go on-line and tell it to plant some more. Then, go fill the seed bin with seeds. All to plant 6 plants. Why not just go plant them?

How do you deal with adverse events? Storms, plants taller than the gantry, weeds that can't be handled with the weed killer.

Feedback. It has none. Requires user to understand how to tweak parameters daily, or at least often, to get results. How much water? How much fertilizer, etc.

Seems to me, you can get the same utility with a raised bed and drip irrigation.

[speedrrracer]

Originally Posted by Michael in California

Interesting concept. I think it would work best in a greenhouse.

Good point. Still, it's a "first", so we can't expect it to be much at this stage. Glad to see there's work going on in the space -- 10 versions from now, we'll have something useful.

I can envision a greenhouse run entirely by robot(s) in a few years. You'd tell it where the seeds are, where the soil is, and you'd just top off it's water / fertilizer / etc supply. It would then plant the seeds in their optimal locations, water / feed / adjust lighting for them correctly, and use a variation of facial recognition to know how the plants were doing, modify the watering / feeding / lighting parameters accordingly, prune, remove pests and harvest when appropriate. Potentially it could even rotate crops.

Put some solar panels / batteries alongside the greenhouse, and it would just beep at you (or text, or email) when it was time to pick up your harvest, or if it needed maintenance or more of some resource.

[Elgatodeacero]

Speedr- exactly.

This is all open source- the parts, the code, and everything designed to be made with home 3d printers and a drill press, basically.

Imagine in a few years when this thing has robot arms that have grabbers and sprays and an infrared camera, the some open source code to detect disease and pests by infrared signature or shape, etc.

Now imagine a small gree house with one or two of these in every yard in america, with algorithims and stuff I dont understand that smart people have developed so I can effortlessly grow perfect swiss chard in Los Angeles heat or whatever.

This thing will soon have heat sensing cameras, grabby arms, and diggy wonkers - just wait and see.

This is like iPhone 1.

[glbtrottr]

Aeroponics, Aquaponics, Hydroponics - best if solar powered.

[KevinB]

Complete BS. Still got to be weeded and insects are always a problem. People don't have a clue what it takes to raise a lot of food.

Nobody in the world is better than the USA farmer.

[Stormfeather]

Gotta agree with this ^^^

[tacksman]

Agreed. Plus that crap aint going to work when the lights go out.

Originally Posted by KevinB

Complete BS. Still got to be weeded and insects are always a problem. People don't have a clue what it takes to raise a lot of food.

Nobody in the world is better than the USA farmer.

[speedrrracer]

Originally Posted by KevinB

Nobody in the world is better than the USA farmer.

And unsurprisingly, the USA farmer is farmer most reliant on high tech in the whole world, using the most automation and the latest tech in every phase, from genetic engineering to drones to robots.

[KevinB]

Originally Posted by speedrrracer

And unsurprisingly, the USA farmer is farmer most reliant on high tech in the whole world, using the most automation and the latest tech in every phase, from genetic engineering to drones to robots.

Agreed, but they do it on millions and millions of acres with huge machines and equipment. They manage it with technology.

[Sunday]

Originally Posted by speedrrracer

And unsurprisingly, the USA farmer is farmer most reliant on high tech in the whole world, using the most automation and the latest tech in every phase, from genetic engineering to drones to robots.

All the while producing low taste and low nutritious value foods, as well as being drenched with herbicides and pesticides.

[Cuda440]

Originally Posted by Sunday

All the while producing low taste and low nutritious value foods, as well as being drenched with herbicides and pesticides.

Such a valid argument, because you know, farmers just love spending money on expensive chemicals.

Its not like GMO's are basically pest resistant strains of indian corn cross bred with high production yellow corn to end up with a pest resistant yellow corn that doesn't require expensive pesticides and crop sprayer service, or anything reasonable like that.

GMOs are totally a government conspiracy to plant microchips in your brain to control you. BEWARE the DANGEROUS GMOs like tangelos and boysenberries!

[Sunday]

Originally Posted by Cuda440

Such a valid argument, because you know, farmers just love spending money on expensive chemicals.

Its not like GMO's are basically pest resistant strains of indian corn cross bred with high production yellow corn to end up with a pest resistant yellow corn that doesn't require expensive pesticides and crop sprayer service, or anything reasonable like that.

GMOs are totally a government conspiracy to plant microchips in your brain to control you. BEWARE the DANGEROUS GMOs like tangelos and boysenberries!

Round up resistant plants? Do you know how Round up works? report back

[Cuda440]

Yeah roundup is a herbicide. Good luck growing a crop if you think killing it first is gonna help.

The only use for roundup in farming is to kill the roots right before harvest- crop is fully grown, developed, and ripe, roundup is sprayed and kills the roots, stalks are cut the next day- round up doesn't make it into the corn that was already fully grown, 6 feet up a stalk, through roots that die as soon as the roundup hits them within a single day before harvest.

Spraying roundup on corn the day before harvest is only practiced by some farms, and has been done for 60+years. But in the last 10 years everybody freaks out about GMOs- tell me- how does GMO make a difference whether the corn is sprayed with herbicide or not?

[KevinB]

I'm sure Sunday has been farming all his life, or he got his great info off a peer reviewed study, or maybe some BS web site. Its one of those.

American farmers feed most of the world.

[ElvenSoul]

Isreal is the world's leader in high tech farming.

http://www.israel21c.org/the-top-12-...eds-the-world/

http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/4334...h-agriculture/