Farming technology round-up: Latest innovations are working to combat worldwide challenges to agriculture

Vertical farming can grow a wide variety of lettuces.
(Photo via FreightFarms.com)

In the face of daunting odds and obscenely unpredictable weather, what can scientists and farmers do? Innovate. "Growing conditions are forecast to change regionally—with some places seeing a potentially longer growing season, but others seeing drier, colder ones. Disease-causing pests and insects are expected to expand their range," reports Nidhi Subbaraman for The Wall Street Journal. "Growers soon could turn to new technological solutions to help cope." Below are some of the latest technologies designed to help agriculture maneuver with Mother Nature's changes.

Seeds that are dropped by a drone and then plant themselves. "Wildfires have become bigger and more frequent as the climate has warmed, sometimes leaving hard-to-reach mountainsides razed of vegetation. Lining Yao, at Carnegie Mellon University, and a team of scientists has come up with a surprisingly low-tech device to help make sure that seeds dropped by drone germinate into saplings. . . . These seed carriers with curved tails and tightly coiled stems are made of paper-thin sheets of wood and attached to a seedpod. When rainwater touches the tails, the material swells, propping up the seed carrier with its point facing into the soil. Seeds with tails had at least 80% success rate burying in lab tests, Yao and her colleagues showed in a study published in Nature."

Sensors that can tell detect how crops are fairing. "Yong Zhu, a mechanical engineer at North Carolina State University, is part of a team that built and demonstrated sensors that can gather information such as hydration and temperature in plants and their immediate environment, as well as chemical hormones released by the plant in response to infection or environmental stress. . . . Made of silver, gold, and carbon nanomaterials embedded in a flexible polymer, the sensors were able to detect infection in tomato plants within four days, the team reported in a study published in Science Advances."

Helping pollinators stay healthy. "When temperatures drop, bees retreat to the hive and rely on their stored food, but if they run out or cluster in the corner of the hive too far from the store, they can starve to death. A team of roboticists in Europe hopes to change this. . . . Researchers warmed the bees when they became static and gathered in a cluster during winter and directed them to a food source at a different location by heating that section of the hive, the team reported in a study published in Science Robotics. . . . The hives aren't ready for prime time. For one, they are expensive to build outside a lab facility and need an external power source to keep them humming."

Upside farming is a work in progress. "Over two-thirds of all freshwater used globally goes to farming. Climate change is expected to keep water in short supply in many places even as demand increases. In a twist, growing plants in water instead of soil—what's known as hydroponic farming—could ease the crunch because it uses less water overall. . . . In soaking humidity or searing heat, growers in over 40 countries are farming produce in high-tech containers made by the Boston company Freight Farms. Leafy greens like lettuce and kale and roots like turnips and radishes grow in specially designed vertical rows, lit with LEDs and monitored closely for nutrition, water acidity, temperature, and more, according to David Harris, the company's director of crop research and development."

Apple-picking robots (Photo via tevel-tech.com)

When the going gets tough, the tough build a robot. "Tevel, based in Israel, has created a swarm of fruit-picking robots that could lend a few spare hands when fruits ripen unpredictably soon and risk spoiling on the tree, according to Ittai Marom, U.S. general manager at Tevel. . . . There are cameras on the robot, and Tevel's software identifies ripe fruit after analyzing the color and size. Marom told Subbaraman: "Somebody who is today a team leader of a picking crew, in the near future, might find themselves monitoring a robotic picker from the convenience of an air-conditioned pickup truck."