Farming

Interest is growing in alternative fuel sources for heavy-duty vehicles that help sidestep heavy diesel pollution, and Amogy has broken new ground in this area by fitting its ammonia-fueled zero-emissions energy system to a John Deere tractor.

Farmers and ranchers have a lot of land to cover, and a lot of work to get done in a day. The Ryse Recon was designed with those facts in mind, as it's being made to quickly fly rural users from place to place.

Many city dwellers don't have access to an outdoor garden but would still like to grow their own greens. HydroArtPod is the latest in a long line of indoor gardening devices looking to automate the cultivation of fresh greens in the home.

A team of researchers has reported the development of an algorithm that can translate the emotional state of pigs from the sound of their grunts. The researchers indicate the system could be used to monitor the well-being of pigs on a farm in real-time.

Many indoor growing systems aimed at supplying users with a steady supply of year-round greens have started life as startup dreams on Kickstarter. But the latest is a freestanding appliance from consumer electronics giant LG called the Tiiun.

New Holland Agriculture has teamed with Pininfarina to present a concept that's sexier than a tractor should be. The Straddle Tractor Concept navigates steep, narrow vineyards to help get aromatic reds and whites to dinner tables the world over.

With large high-tech sustainable farming facilities located in California and Texas, Silicon Valley-based startup Iron Ox relies heavily on robots to help shoulder the workload. The company's latest bot, named Grover, can lift over 1,000 lb (454 kg).

The Plantee indoor greenhouse was developed for folks who have brought a colorful plant home from a shopping trip, only to watch it wither and die. The all-in-one, plug-and-play solution takes the guesswork out of caring for plants in the home.

According to Pennsylvania State University's Asst. Prof. Long He, the mushroom-farming industry is currently experiencing a labor shortage. His team has thus set about addressing that problem, by developing a mushroom-picking robot.

One of the challenges of farming lies in the fact that by the time plants appear to be stressed, it may already be too late to address the problem. A new potato, however, is designed to warn farmers by fluorescing at the earliest stages of stress.

The company behind the Smart Herb Garden we reviewed back in 2014 has launched a new indoor garden on Kickstarter. The Click & Grow 25 system promises to grow "substantial amounts of greens for everyday use, without becoming a time-consuming hobby."

Australian researchers have cooked up a creative partial solution to the problem of labor shortages in the fruit-picking sector, developing a robot that can harvest apples from orchards at high speed.