farming

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  • A John Deere tractor steering wheel pictured with a smart display next to it

    The geomagnetic storm is a nightmare for farmers relying on precision agriculture tech

    According to a report by 404 Media, the intense solar activity over the last few days has disrupted critical GPS systems that guide modern tractors. Modern John Deere tractors as well as those from other brands rely on this technology for precision.

  • Eleni Stavrinidou, associate professor, and supervisor of the study and Alexandra Sandéhn, PhD student, one of the lead authors, connect the eSoil to a low power source for stimulating plant growth.

    Swedish Researchers develop ‘electronic soil’ that speeds up plant growth

    Researchers from Linköping University in Sweden developed a ‘bioelectronic soil’ that can speed up the growth of plants in controlled agricultural farming environments.

    Malak Saleh
    12.27.2023
  • Baling hay with a John Deere 7930 tractor and a GPT Twin Pak baler on a ranch in southern Utah. (Photo by: Jon G. Fuller/VW Pics/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

    John Deere will let US farmers repair their own equipment

    John Deere has agreed to a right to repair promise, albeit under plenty of political pressure.

    Jon Fingas
    01.09.2023
  • Honeybee pollinating a flower in Markham, Ontario, Canada, on September 02, 2022. (Photo by Creative Touch Imaging Ltd./NurPhoto via Getty Images)

    US Department of Agriculture approves first-ever vaccine for honeybees

    Biotech firm Dalan Animal Health recently developed a vaccine to protect honeybees from American Foulbrood disease, a bacteria that can kill entire hives.

    Igor Bonifacic
    01.08.2023
  • CNH Industrial New Holland T4 Electric Power tractor

    Self-driving electric tractor promises eco-friendly, hands-off farming

    Farmers may soon have the option of a self-driving electric tractor that can even power their tools.

    Jon Fingas
    12.09.2022
  • Ikea H22

    IKEA will help turn a Swedish city into a sustainable community

    IKEA is moving beyond the confines of the eco-friendly home to work on sustainable urban living. The flat-pack giant is partnering with the municipality of Helsingborg in its native Sweden on a green community project, known as H22, that takes in agriculture, retail and housing. In the Drottninghög suburb, IKEA will help establish an urban farming marketplace with an eye to upskilling residents and creating new jobs and businesses.

    Saqib Shah
    02.11.2021
  • Alphabet Mineral

    Alphabet's Mineral moonshot wants to help farmers with robotic plant buggies

    In 2018, Alphabet's X lab said it was in the process of exploring how it could use artificial intelligence to improve farming. The Mineral team has spent the last several years "developing and testing a range of software and hardware prototypes based on breakthroughs in artificial intelligence, simulation, sensors, robotics and more." Powered by solar panels, the machine makes its way across a farmer's field, examining every plant it passes along the way with an array of cameras and sensors.

    Igor Bonifacic
    10.12.2020
  • Dmytro Diedov via Getty Images

    FCC rolls out a $9 billion fund for rural 5G connectivity

    The FCC is creating a $9 billion 5G Fund to support rural high-speed connectivity. The funding is intended to help carriers deploy 5G in hard-to-serve areas, those that are sparsely populated and/or have rugged terrain. At least $1 billion will be reserved for 5G to support precision agriculture.

  • Nissan

    Robot 'duck' keeps weeds out of rice paddies

    For rice farmers, ducks have been a viable way to keep their crops healthy -- they destroy weeds, eat bugs and fertilize crops without using harmful chemicals. And now, a Nissan technician might have an alternative when fowl isn't an option. He's testing a robot 'duck' that roams rice paddies, muddying the water to prevent weeds from getting enough sunlight to grow -- it's really a Roomba (and a cute one at that) for watery fields. Although it's a personal project, it's fully realized with GPS, a WiFi connection and solar power to minimize its environmental impact.

    Jon Fingas
    06.23.2019
  • FarmWise

    FarmWise and Roush are making autonomous vegetable weeders

    Silicon Valley startup FarmWise Labs announced today that it is teaming up with Michigan-based manufacturing and automotive company Roush to create autonomous vegetable weeders. The companies will work together over the course of the year to create prototypes for self-driving robots that will be able to navigate across crops. If all goes well, they will start to scale up with additional units in 2020.

    AJ Dellinger
    03.27.2019
  • Mark Stone/University of Washington

    Bees with tiny sensor backpacks could help farmers track crops

    Farmers can use drones to monitor their fields, but they have their limits when they can rarely fly for more than 20 to 30 minutes at a time. University of Washington researchers might have a smarter way: recruit some insect friends. They've developed sensor backpacks that are light enough (about 0.0035 ounces) and efficient enough to ride on a bumblebee, but capable enough to collect data for seven hours at a time over relatively long distances. You wouldn't have to replace packs very often, either, as they could just fly into their hives to wirelessly recharge and transmit data.

    Jon Fingas
    12.11.2018
  • Pixabay

    Robots are learning to carefully peel lettuce leaves

    Technology is designed to improve and streamline every facet of life, and that inevitably includes areas most people would never even think about. Such a lettuce peeling. A random issue for many, perhaps, but for the agriculture industry, a new development in this field is a big deal. Researchers from Cambridge University have developed the first robotic lettuce leaf peeling system, which not only demonstrates advances in automation, but addresses increasing food and labor demands.

    Rachel England
    09.26.2018
  • Luo Jinglai/Barcroft Media via Getty Images

    Gene-edited rice plants could boost the world's food supply

    Rice may be one of the most plentiful crops on Earth, but there are only so many grains you can naturally obtain from a given plant. Scientists may have a straightforward answer to that problem: edit the plants to make them produce more. They've used CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing to create a rice plant variety that produces 25 to 31 percent more grain per plant in real world tests, or far more than you'd get through natural breeding. The technique "silenced" genes that improve tolerances for threats like drought and salt, but stifle growth. That sounds bad on the surface, but plants frequently have genetic redundancies -- this approach exploited this duplication just enough to provide all of the benefits and none of the drawbacks.

    Jon Fingas
    05.28.2018
  • Francois Nascimbeni/AFP/Getty Images

    Alphabet's X lab explores using AI to improve food production

    Add Alphabet to the growing number of companies hoping that AI will solve food production problems. The Google parent brand's X lab has revealed that it's exploring ways machine learning could improve farming. While X hasn't focused on any specific solutions, lab leader Astro Teller told MIT Technology Review that AI could be combined with drones and other robotics. It could help determine when to harvest crops, or adapt farms in areas where climate change makes forecasting difficult.

    Jon Fingas
    03.27.2018
  • Chris Velazco/Engadget

    Arable's Mark crop sensors give farmers a data-driven edge

    I've never actually set foot on a farm, but I'm inexplicably still drawn to agriculture startups -- after all, farming is one of the world's oldest professions, and nothing is quite as helpful as pure hard data. Fortunately, that's exactly what Arable specializes in: It built a crop sensor that's absolutely packed with instruments to give farmers greater insight into how their fields are doing. That's great for business, sure, but it also helps ensure that quality produce eventually ends up on our plates.

    Chris Velazco
    01.10.2018
  • Parrot

    Parrot's latest drones are for farmers and firefighters

    It's been a tough year for Parrot. The drone maker cut 290 jobs after sub-par sales, and it wasn't shy in admitting that its lineup was both unfocused and (for personal drones) unprofitable. However, it has an idea as to how to recover: by targeting the professional crowd. Its new Bebop-Pro Thermal and Bluegrass drones include equipment tailored to specific needs. The Bebop, as its name implies, includes a thermal imaging camera and matching software alongside the usual video cam. It's meant to help firefighters and rescue crews pinpoint sources of heat, whether it's a blaze or a person trapped under rubble. There's also a long-range remote control in the box to keep pilots well out of harm's way.

    Jon Fingas
    10.24.2017
  • Hands Free Hectare

    Shropshire farm completes harvest with nothing but robots

    Researchers in Shropshire, England have managed to sow and harvest a field of barley using nothing but robots. Many aspects of farming have now been automated, but rarely is the entire process — planting, tending, monitoring and harvesting — completed without someone stepping foot inside the field. The 'Hands-Free Hectare' project was set up last October by a team from Harper Adams University. With £200,000 in government funding, they modified a tractor and combine harvester with cameras, lasers and GPS systems. Drones and a robot "scout," which could scoop up and carry soil samples, helped the group monitor the field from afar.

    Nick Summers
    09.07.2017
  • Luke MacGregor/Bloomberg via Getty Images

    John Deere bought an AI company to optimize crop spraying

    Want to know how pervasive AI is becoming in seemingly all facets of daily life? Just ask Deere & Company. The John Deere brand owner just acquired Blue River Technology, which uses machine learning and computer vision to target herbicide spraying at just the weed-infested portions of a farm field. The technology can minimize both waste and the amount of input needed while spraying, saving farmers headaches and money in the process.

    Jon Fingas
    09.06.2017
  • AOL

    The Future IRL: Robot farmers do the dirty work

    The US is facing an agricultural worker shortage, along with aging farm owners, at the same time it juggles demand in food from a global population boom. If we're being blunt, those elements added together would mean farmers and production are straight screwed. Luckily, some engineers and researchers are creating robots that are already beginning to ease the load.

    Kerry Davis
    08.15.2017
  • Luke MacGregor/Bloomberg via Getty Images

    Monsanto bets on AI to protect crops against disease

    Monsanto has drawn plenty of criticism for its technology-driven (and heavily litigious) approach to agriculture, but its latest effort might just hint at the future of farming. It's partnering with Atomwise on the use of AI to quickly discover molecules that can protect crops against disease and pests. Rather than ruling out molecules one at a time, Atomwise will use its deep learning to predict the likelihood that a given molecule will have the desired effect. It's whittling down the candidate list to those molecules that are genuinely promising.

    Jon Fingas
    06.18.2017