Crops

It's a sad fact that even though bees are essential to pollinating crops, they're also harmed by the pesticides used on those very same plants. Thanks to a new discovery, however, a bee-friendly pesticide could soon be cheaper and easier to produce.

When most people think of a grain crop, they picture a field full of one type of plant. A new study, however, indicates that crops made up of mixed grains are both more resilient and higher-yielding than their conventional counterparts.

When we think of agricultural robots, we tend to picture things that pick produce or apply chemicals. The SentiV is different, though, in that it's designed to check crops for problems while autonomously wandering the fields.

According to Japanese robotics firm Agrist, there's a shortage of farm workers in that country. The company is offering a partial solution to the problem, though, in the form of a pepper-picking robot.

If fruit is going to be grown using herbicides – which is still largely the case – then the fewer of the chemicals that are used, the better. The Herbicide GUSS autonomous robotic spray vehicle was designed with just such concerns in mind.

Although plain popcorn is a relatively healthy snack, it's still not one that most people would think of as being very nutritious. That could change, however, as a new variety reportedly offers nearly twice the normal levels of an important nutrient.

It would certainly be logical to think that plants don't do well when exposed to forest fire smoke. New research, however, suggests that certain crops get hardier and more disease-resistant when liquid smoke is added to the soil.

It's no secret that herbicides can be harmful to the environment, plus they're costly, and weeds may develop a resistance to them. New research now suggests that farmers could get the same weed-killing results from a hot biodegradable foam.

Along with being costly, herbicides can also harm the environment … so why apply them to a whole crop, instead of just the areas where weeds are growing? That's the thinking behind the Solix Sprayer robot, which spots and sprays weeds in fields.

Scientists have improved on the natural process of photosynthesis, not only growing plants more efficiently, but doing so in the dark. This could expand agriculture to areas that don’t get enough sunlight, and even help feed future space explorers.

Farmers could be spared a lot of work and expense – plus the environment could be spared a lot of harmful chemicals – if crops didn't have to be sprayed indiscriminately. The new plant-inspecting Solix robot was designed with those facts in mind.

Birds regularly eat large quantities of crops, and often become accustomed to stationary devices designed to scare them away. That's why scientists are now looking at using autonomous drones to do the job.