Agriculture

While pest insects can have a devastating effect on crops, pesticides can likewise cause a great deal of damage to the environment. That's where CropCoat comes in, as it's designed not to kill harmful insects, but to "hide" plants from them instead.

Ordinarily, if you want to know how soil properties change at different depths, you have to extract soil core samples. Scientists have now determined that the same data can be obtained much more easily, using ground-penetrating radar.

Pesticides may indeed kill plant pathogens, but they're also harmful to the environment. Newly developed nanoparticles may provide a more eco-friendly alternative, as they boost the immune systems of crop plants, then harmlessly dissolve.

If crop plants aren't receiving enough nutrients, they'll typically have lower-than-normal nitrogen levels. A portable new device could allow farmers to check those levels on the spot, so they can start addressing the problem as soon as possible.

When it comes to targets for autonomous machinery, those carrying out repetitive tasks on farmland are ripe for the picking. The newly introduced Monarch Tractor is designed to show how it’s done, packing an all-electric powertrain and machine learning.

Fertilizers typically contain phosphorous, as it's essential to growing plants. Unfortunately, though, it can become "locked" in the soil, and thus not available to crops. That said, it turns out that the addition of a microbe could unlock it.

Wheat is one of the most widely grown crops, so any increases in its yield could go a long way towards reducing world hunger. That's where a new variety comes in, as its yield is reportedly up to 11 percent higher than that of regular wheat.

If you want to know the local soil conditions, it would be good if you could just ask an earthworm. Given that that's an impossibility, though, scientists are now working on the next-best thing – earthworm-inspired soil-analyzing agricultural robots.

Generally speaking, you don't see many crops being grown in arid regions – especially when irrigation isn't practical and/or affordable. That could be about to change, though, with the development of what's being described as "self-watering soil."

A new Texan startup has announced its first electric motorcycle. The awkwardly named Volcon Grunt is a fat-wheeled off-roader with a 100-mile range, and it'll soon be followed by a pair of side-by-side four-wheelers built for practicality and fun.

Although there are now a few different crop-spraying multicopter drones, fixed-wing drones are faster and have a longer battery range. That's where the recently US-certified autonomous electric Pelican crop duster comes into the picture.

Alphabet’s X moonshot factory is a research group working to solve big-picture ideas through technological innovation, and for its latest venture the team is turning its attention to sustainable farming.