The technology behind the crops

    MiS·
    Creative Living
    ··1 min read
    MiS

    Plant technology is currently ensuring plants grow better, healthier, and in conditions which traditionally have been unsuitable for certain kinds of crops. This is enabling higher yields and a better quality of plant and crops produced. So what kind of technology is being deployed?

    Robotics and AI (Artificial Intelligence)

    Projects such as the Digital Farmhand are able to monitor and spray plant crops and monitor plant health. This information is relayed to the farmer who can then take action as needed. The Digital Farmhand can work online or offline needing to go online only when the system needs to be updated or new data fed to it to work in a different field or when new crops are introduced. Any notifications a farmer needs to know can be sent to his or her smartphone.

    The robot is like a miniature tractor that rolls over the pants and thanks to machine learning capabilities are able to decide when to spray or not spray a crop. Salah Sukkarieh from the University of Sydney is developing the project for the small farm holder in the developing world. It could easily be utilised by farmers all over the world.

    Soil Monitoring Technology

    Soil quality is essential to plant growth. It’s as important as the quality of the seeds used. The better the soil, the better the yield and the healthier the crop. The solution is to identify what area of a field is most fertile. To do this advanced mapping technology is deployed providing data on soil quality.

    The overall goal is to have a sensor array fitted on farm vehicles to take the readings in real time and relay this to the farmer. This would allow the future development of algorithms to enable robotic spraying of soil and crop for maximum yield.

    Currently, farms are using this technology with sensors in the soil. Having a mobile version of this would offer huge advantages to farmers.

    Bio-Technology and Plants

    Although genetically modified food has a bad reputation there are applications where you can’t help but admire what it has achieved. Using a fusion of plant genes crops have been changed to be able to grow in different seasons and become more resistant to disease and pests.

    Healthy plant growth is not only important in terms of food (corn seeds, vegetables, etc.), but also for medicinal and cosmetic plant cultivation (cannabis seeds, aloe, etc.).

    Technology is growing plants right now to help the human race survive.