Scope for automation

Merrion

What farming jobs do you think have scope for automation (given the type of technologies that Google are putting into their self driving car project) if any?

afatbollix

Id say about 90% could be automated.


Wait till they start using the tech google are using to make automated tractors and then mowers, slurry speaders weeders would all be set up on a PC in a morning and then set them off for the day. The industry has gone through a huge automation in the past 20 years and will continue to.

The thing is cost. In China its cheaper to hire 40 men to dig a hole in Ireland its cheaper to hire a digger for a day to dig the hole. It will all come down to cost of labor in years to come.

ganmo

picking vegetables with something like one of them robot lawnmowers

google precision farming

Nekarsulm

Rolling, disk harrowing, power harrowing, stuff like that which needs little or no intelligent inputs.

Timmaay

In dairying there is a huge amount already, robot milking the obvious highlight, but things like auto calf feeders, heat detection, feed to yield. For high input farms, the level of automation possible for the diet is crazy, but in fairness no more complex than many assembly lines, I suppose the crazy part is trying to justify a spend as such on what is usually a very low margin business.

Blackgrass

In combinables cropping can micro manage down to about the 10m2 scale in crops with tech but need to justify it with scale/management. What i'd like is to transfer a 'Quality trait analysis' machine onto the combine to get to get a realtime account of what the crop is doing vs hit and hope technique, be a dairy equivalent of being able to milk record every cow every milking rather than hit and hope once a milking per month.

blackdog1

Timmaay wrote: »

In dairying there is a huge amount already, robot milking the obvious highlight, but things like auto calf feeders, heat detection, feed to yield. For high input farms, the level of automation possible for the diet is crazy, but in fairness no more complex than many assembly lines, I suppose the crazy part is trying to justify a spend as such on what is usually a very low margin business.

Mechanising things is easy it's paying the maintenance fee that's the problem. I'm in the process of upgrading a few things that will help me turn my farm into a 1 man operation. So far I've got heat time and cluster removers. Plan to get automatic washer and fty system in next 5-6 years. But their has to be a balance between being mechanised and over mechanised

Blackgrass

blackdog1 wrote: »

Mechanising things is easy it's paying the maintenance fee that's the problem. I'm in the process of upgrading a few things that will help me turn my farm into a 1 man operation. So far I've got heat time and cluster removers. Plan to get automatic washer and fty system in next 5-6 years. But their has to be a balance between being mechanised and over mechanised

Time and information are money, if you make them pay vs the oppurtunity cost crack on!

Merrion

This article on using tracker technology to optimise AI is also what I was thinking.

Cavanjack

Nekarsulm wrote: »

Rolling, disk harrowing, power harrowing, stuff like that which needs little or no intelligent inputs.

I heard an old farmer say that that's all you needed to be a farmer. Little or no intelligents!!!

Farrell

Merrion wrote: »

This article on using tracker technology to optimise AI is also what I was thinking.

How much?
Is it waterproof?
What's the range?

Merrion

From this video
No price - it is still proof of concept
Yes - the pedometer is and has a 5 year battery
300 meters.

(Of course multiple receivers would increase that range)
Bizarrely it seems gender selection is also possible...

ganmo

late to the game on that unfortunately
I know of 2 of these systems on the market in ireland, one by dairymaster(moomoniter)

that sex thing is strange though