Tom Dick and Harry robots locate and zap weeds, then plant seeds in England field

[CousinIT]

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/06/09/tech/robot-zaps-weeds-spc-intl/index.html

London (CNN Business)On a field in England, three robots have been given a mission: to find and zap weeds with electricity before planting seeds in the cleared soil.

The robots — named Tom, Dick and Harry — were developed by Small Robot Company to rid land of unwanted weeds with minimal use of chemicals and heavy machinery.

The startup has been working on its autonomous weed killers since 2017, and this April launched Tom, its first commercial robot which is now operational on three UK farms. The other robots are still in the prototype stage, undergoing testing.

Small Robot says robot Tom can scan 20 hectares (49 acres) a day, collecting data which is then used by Dick, a "crop-care" robot, to zap weeds. Then it's robot Harry's turn to plant seeds in the weed-free soil.

Using the full system, once it is up and running, farmers could reduce costs by 40% and chemical usage by up to 95%, the company says.

[soothsayer]

1. Sounds good ... until Dick turns his zapper on us

[TreasonousBastard]

2. Or our dogs. Worse, our "weed" crop.

[Phoenix61]

3. Very, very cool. Weeds won't build up immunity to electricity.

Plus, if you’re not using chemical weed control you don’t have to buy GMO seed. I have to wonder how many farmers would use this system just to tell Monsanto to eff-off.

[CousinIT]

4. Telling Monsanto to eff off sound good to me and I'm not a farmer. Probably Big Ag would lobby ...

... against these types of solutions here in the US since they are allowed to own and control our gov't via dark money - add to that the inability of the US senate to even function on behalf of the majority of Americans.

[Kid Berwyn]

5. Dry running.

[eppur_se_muova]

6. I was going to suggest they be named Huey, Dewey, and Louie ... nt