The Future Of Farming

With its shunning of chemicals, organic farming can seem like a low-tech pursuit. But this weed-destroying robot, weighing in at about 3 tons, would like to have a word about that. The FarmWise Titan FT-35 is a driverless tractor that uses machine learning and computer vision, rather than herbicides, to eradicate weeds from farmers’ fields. Traveling along a conventional tractor’s path, the machine identifies both the planted crop—broccoli, lettuce, cauliflower and, soon, tomatoes—and the weeds disturbing its growth. In an instant, it reaches for the weed within 1 cm of precision and pulls it. Ten FT-35s are currently deployed in California and Arizona, with more to come in 2021. —Jesse Will

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