Weeding, harvesting, picking, carrying,… Robots are today’s answer to many challenges facing agriculture. And they will show up this fall in Salinas for the second edition of FIRA USA. From September 19 to 21, the Salinas Sports Complex, home of the famous California Rodeo Salinas, will be the place to discover the autonomous farming solutions in action. During three days, expo, demos, …
Just as the previous Farm Bill has supported farmers with cost-share programs like EQIP to improve their sustainability, the specialty crop sector of ag is pushing for the coming Farm Bill to support on-farm ag tech innovations in a similar way. Watch this brief interview with California Fresh Fruit Association President Ian LeMay to learn more. Please thank this video’s …
If you savor a juicy watermelon in the scorching summer heat, farmers toil to meet your tastes. But, like all farmers, those who produce watermelons seek ways to control diseases, so they don’t lose all or part of their crops. The needs of growers drive Yiannis Ampatzidis to use artificial intelligence to detect pathogens early and accurately. One such disease, …
Amidst a threatening drought, groups and individuals are working to find more ways to conserve the precious resource of water, and Turlock Irrigation District has been leading the way for sustainable water management with new technologies and strategies. Watch this brief interview with Michelle Reimers from Turlock Irrigation District as she explains their recent improvements and plans. Please thank this …
Urban agriculture offers many benefits for food production but often has higher costs relative to traditional farming and is limited to only a few crops. By 2050, there will be nine billion people on the planet, but arable land is decreasing. Global food production will need to double to meet food needs, though climate change complicates the problem more. Robert …
Western Growers (WG) is spearheading a Global Harvest Automation Initiative (GHAI) to accelerate harvest automation across the fresh produce industry, with a goal of automating 50 percent of harvest within 10 years. “For well over a decade, our members have struggled with a dwindling number of available workers. If we don’t come together as an industry to quickly and efficiently …
The Cucurbit Coordinated Agricultural Project (CucCAP), a multi-institution, nationwide research and outreach initiative led by Michigan State University and dedicated to cucurbit crops — cucumbers, squashes, melons and watermelon — has been awarded $7.1 million from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Specialty Crop Research Initiative. The new funding extends the project that began in 2015 for four years. The goals …
With support from the National Institute of Food and Agriculture’s Multistate Research Fund, researchers at 17 land-grant universities are working together to develop automated systems that work well for labor-intensive specialty crops like fruits, vegetables, tree nuts, and nursery plants. A multi-state collaborative approach lifts the burden of research and development from a single specialty crop sector and spurs major …
Steve Fennimore, UC Davis Plant Sciences faculty member and UC Cooperative Extension weed specialist, and colleagues received the 2020 EurAgEng Outstanding Paper Award for the paper, “Crop Signalling: A Novel Crop Recognition Technique for Robotic Control,” which was published in Biosystems Engineering. The research represents a breakthrough in differentiating weeds from crops using machine vision systems. The technology could help California growers address challenges in …
Many farmers are already familiar with California DWR’s CIMIS program, with weather stations that collect data for them all over the state. What they may not know is some newer features to the program that can help them better determine irrigation needs for their crops wherever they may be. Watch this brief interview with Steve Ewert as he explains.
