The future of farming - Laser Weeding

[armylifer]

I saw this interesting article and I thought that I would share it. I wonder how powerful the laser has to be to kill weeds. I also wonder if a laser pointer can kill weeds. It would be an interesting experiment.

Farming Robot Kills 200,000 Weeds Per Hour With Lasers | ZeroHedge

ZeroHedge - On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero

www.zerohedge.com

 

[GreensvilleJay]

their unit has 30 x 150Watt lasers..... so obviously 'pointer' ain't got the power......

Bet there's a LOT of 'red tape' to buy/use/own one. after all having 4500 watts of LASER at your finger tips is a GREAT weapon.

 

[armylifer]

their unit has 30 x 150Watt lasers..... so obviously 'pointer' ain't got the power......

Bet there's a LOT of 'red tape' to buy/use/own one. after all having 4500 watts of LASER at your finger tips is a GREAT weapon.

If your numbers are correct, then the cost to power that machine per hour would be prohibitive for anyone but big agriculture.

 

[GreensvilleJay]

took them off their website....
4.5KW LASER power doesn't cost much..easily done with 10KW generator, say 20HP ? Double that for the 'AI computers and cameras and such. so less than 50HP overall. Need to see real specs,that company may now show online.
They have a LOT of 'headaches' like dust to contend with, both to 'see' the weed and then aim to kill the weed..in the end it's just lines of code and controlling electrons.....

 

[Russell King]

Here is one you can build yourself that uses “magnifying glasses“ to burn the weeds.

I plan on trying to build something similar to at least find the weeds and spray paint on them so I can kill them. I might just use glyphosate instead of paint but just finding the weeds will save so much time and speed up the process of eradicating a weed species. It is hard to find 100% of the weeds before they go to seed.

 

[armylifer]

Here is one you can build yourself that uses “magnifying glasses“ to burn the weeds.
duck://player/uVJXskpkuEE

I plan on trying to build something similar to at least find the weeds and spray paint on them so I can kill them. I might just use glyphosate instead of paint but just finding the weeds will save so much time and speed up the process of eradicating a weed species. It is hard to find 100% of the weeds before they go to seed.

Did you intend to include a link?

 

[Russell King]

Did you intend to include a link?

Yes added it now

 

[Workerbee]

Weeds start to do their damage to crop yeild as soon as they emerge. And they dont emerge all at the same time. So are they going to keep this machine going 24/7 for 2 or 3 weeks? Looking at it from an actual farming pov it seems like an expensive piece of scrap to me.

 

[Yooper]

Interesting concept. Found an article from 2022 that said it could only do 15-20 acres per day. Article was kind of vague but they were insinuating that it was or will be a self driving unit. Anybody know what the price point is?

 

[D2Cat]

A friend who is a serious farmer was explaining how he get soil samples and sends them to a lab in Nebraska. He gets a detailed report, much more complete then soil services offer. He is telling how with the correct fertilizer for the specific soil, particular weeds don't grow. So with correct soil conditions much less weed spray is needed. Instead of spraying to kill every weed in the field, with fewer weeds and more specific weeds less chemical cost.