Have you seen this monster!
- Thread starter Allison McKenzie
- Start date
Au contraire, I say it would bring fun in growing your own food. Minimal hassle and digging in earth. I´m interested in eating, not growing.
There are already well working full size solutions for professional use and as it is more and more complicated to find people who are willing to look after vegetables professionally these systems surely will become the standard pretty soon.
It would take a very long time to recover the investment for a decent size one (£3,500 - and even that's not big)! The smaller ones you could turn over the ground, plant, and water in less time than it would take to install it! No, I'm definitely with you Allison; I wouldn't bother growing my own veg if it wasn't for the satisfaction of the results after the labour - it's a free gym.
I've been interested in horticultural robotics for a couple of decades. It's an interesting niche where chic modern tech meets the rough, random, grittiness of soil. I love it as a novelty but I won't defend it against rational criticism. Does it produce better veg than a manually tended plot? No. Will it become the norm on big farms? Probably.
Pointless for my small plot. However, if anyone comes up with an automatic weeding machine, I'm definitely interested!
It's soul-less.
It doesn't smell that fresh growingness, it doesn't delight in the colours, it doesn't quietly smile at the bees, it doesn't wonder at what is 'that' coming up, it doesn't stretch afterwards and ease an aching back and feel chuffed about the labour and satisfied at a job well done.......
Just my tuppence ha'penny worth.
It doesn't smell that fresh growingness, it doesn't delight in the colours, it doesn't quietly smile at the bees, it doesn't wonder at what is 'that' coming up, it doesn't stretch afterwards and ease an aching back and feel chuffed about the labour and satisfied at a job well done.......
Just my tuppence ha'penny worth.
Half the fun is growing it yourself, watching what you planted reach maturit!
With the push for green architecture (growing space on tower block walls/roofs) I can see these becoming common in the future
Especially with sneaky cannabis growers. Hard to get caught red-handed if you’re not there.
Isn‘t this just taking the fully computerised grow house to a smaller level? Much of our vegetable food is watered, fed and lit automatically, we’d be hard pushed to be self sufficient for every vegetable, fruit or herb we wanted. A few years ago I watched a tractor prep a field for planting negotiating itself by GPS and sensors and found the whole thing a bit melancholy. But would I bridle my horses and get my plough to do the same on a smaller scale? I don’t think I would.
For small scale food production, especially for elderly or disabled people, I can see it being as useful and valued as a wheelchair in the extra freedom it can provide. Being anti-machine/robot about a device that does the hard work, the work that wears out human joints isn’t the future.
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True, although having your entire cannabis grow history linked up to your iPad might land you in a bit of bother....Especially with sneaky cannabis growers. Hard to get caught red-handed if you’re not there.
Isn‘t this just taking the fully computerised grow house to a smaller level? Much of our vegetable food is watered, fed and lit automatically, we’d be hard pushed to be self sufficient for every vegetable, fruit or herb we wanted. A few years ago I watched a tractor prep a field for planting negotiating itself by GPS and sensors and found the whole thing a bit melancholy. But would I bridle my horses and get my plough to do the same on a smaller scale? I don’t think I would.
For small scale food production, especially for elderly or disabled people, I can see it being as useful and valued as a wheelchair in the extra freedom it can provide. Being anti-machine/robot about a device that does the hard work, the work that wears out human joints isn’t the future.
I also saw a demo of the gps guided planting rig, impressed with the tech but yes, not how we imagine our food being produced
I just cant buy into a plan to spend thousands ad thousands for the sake of one carrot and a handful of spinach.
I want to live in the greenhouse (I'll get dressed in the header). Get up and tend all the living green things around me. Away up north in Canada's high arctic, it has just about come down to this. You share your living space with your food. The intense lighting and increased day length does wonders for your head.
Watch the old movie: "Silent Running." A bit discouraging at the end.
I want to live in the greenhouse (I'll get dressed in the header). Get up and tend all the living green things around me. Away up north in Canada's high arctic, it has just about come down to this. You share your living space with your food. The intense lighting and increased day length does wonders for your head.
Watch the old movie: "Silent Running." A bit discouraging at the end.
i used to have two tortoises named Fangio and Fitipaldi but they ran away and I couldn't catch them up.
I love that film, Huey, Louie and Dewy.
You’re lucky with day length, some have to use lights, irrigation has always been key to agriculture. We’re able to adapt nature to suit us, whether it be Roman aquaducts or pumped water, we’ve always sought to make the labour of growing easier. I totally understand the pleasure of a vegetable plot and happily stand out and look at the sky and smell the air while watering with the hose (which is moving pumped computer controlled mains water from my supply to my patch).
The obvious thing to do if I couldn’t would be to fit a timer to the tap. If the greenhouse becomes too hot, the vents raise automatically, if it gets cold then a heater comes on. It’s tech based already, these gardening machines don’t come as a shock to me at all, more like an advantage to small growers who want fresh food with provenance…once the price is driven down.
Le Loup
Settler
My youngest son has one Allison but he has not set it up yet. Good for people who want or need to grow their own food but don't have the time.
Regards, Keith.
I live in a valley. The ranges on the east and west sides cut an hour off the sunshine, sunrise and sunset, every day of the year.
In the winter solstice, my house goes into shade at 1:52 PM. I'll guess the sun is on my house 9:30AM that day.
My sister in Dawson City, YT, sees 6 weeks ( !!!) of darkness with NO SUN each winter. Talk about your short days. And yes, it is the land of the midnight sun with 6 weeks of perpetual sunshine in summer.
Lots of green house thermo-mechanical functions have been automated for decades. I think the real trick is to realize adequate production all 12 months of the year, even with -50C on the other side of the glass.
Even a dirty thermonuclear generator with waste heat that you could capture would be a huge boost.
In the winter solstice, my house goes into shade at 1:52 PM. I'll guess the sun is on my house 9:30AM that day.
My sister in Dawson City, YT, sees 6 weeks ( !!!) of darkness with NO SUN each winter. Talk about your short days. And yes, it is the land of the midnight sun with 6 weeks of perpetual sunshine in summer.
Lots of green house thermo-mechanical functions have been automated for decades. I think the real trick is to realize adequate production all 12 months of the year, even with -50C on the other side of the glass.
Even a dirty thermonuclear generator with waste heat that you could capture would be a huge boost.
You surely all know the independent operating electric lawn mowers.
That's more or less the future concept for every professional agriculture.
We still have a man on the most modern tractors but he just drives it to the field and then just sits there and looks if the horrible expensive independent operating machine works how it is expected instead of leaving the ground on the way to Paris.
The man is more or less just employed to hit the emergency switch if needed.
That's more or less the future concept for every professional agriculture.
We still have a man on the most modern tractors but he just drives it to the field and then just sits there and looks if the horrible expensive independent operating machine works how it is expected instead of leaving the ground on the way to Paris.
The man is more or less just employed to hit the emergency switch if needed.
Several years ago I saw robotic tractors at an agricultural show. They didn't even have a cabin - I guess they were transported by trailer if needed. Farming employs fewer and fewer people. A farm near me sacked most of their fruit sorting staff because they bought an automatic sorter - size, colour and damage/blemishes all accounted for. From a line of people working along a conveyor belt they went down to 3. One to receive incoming goods, another for outgoing and the 3rd an engineer to poke the machine.
