Showcasing the latest AgTech

BY CHRIS GILLITT

On the rich and fertile soils of Gatton, farmers from all over Queensland eagerly immersed themselves in a festival of technology and innovative ideas at the Gatton AgTech Showcase.

The Gatton Smart Farm aims to accelerate the adoption of ag-technologies by creating an ecosystem enabling co-innovation between industry, research community and AgTech solution providers.

While the showcase was primarily aimed at the horticulture sector, it is exciting to “look over the fence” and see the innovations and techniques being developed and ultimately producing practical solutions demonstrated in the field.

In the machinery and equipment realm there were solutions in two categories of weed management—mechanical cultivation and chemical control. Within each of these, the approaches and application of technology varied. Some were specialised implements drawn by tractors, others were self-drive units. Some made use of Artificial Intelligence (AI), or machine learning to do the job and adapt to conditions. They were all operated on the day and demonstrated their capabilities to the amazement of visitors.

While many of these investments in mechanical innovation may be best suited to intensive and high-value cropping, the lessons being learned as they become more mainstream will certainly provide opportunities to adapt and apply to broadacre crops such as sugarcane. These approaches will ultimately unlock and enable more widespread application, such as for precision agriculture applications.

Robotics and automation coupled with Machine Learning and AI methods could combat labour shortages and free up management time for less routine tasks. The frontiers are even more broad when also considering the impact that could be achieved from bioengineering—on the input side (e.g., for improved varieties, or for control of pests, diseases, and weeds), and on the output side (e.g., for alternative products).

The Gatton Smart Farm facility hosted an AgTech Showcase, organised by Hort Innovation and the Queensland Government.

• FarmDroid is a solar-driven robot that can seed and weed a field autonomously! It uses highprecision GPS to mark the exact placement of the crop. When it returns to perform mechanical weed control, it cleans between and inside the crop rows by recalling and avoiding each individual plant (i.e., where the crop is expected to be).

• FarmDroid is a solar-driven robot that can seed and weed a field autonomously! It uses highprecision GPS to mark the exact placement of the crop. When it returns to perform mechanical weed control, it cleans between and inside the crop rows by recalling and avoiding each individual plant (i.e., where the crop is expected to be).

• ROBOTTI is an autonomous, multipurpose tool carrier, which means it can be mounted with a variety of implements. It can perform tasks such as precision seeing, weeding, harrowing, ridging, and spraying. It is designed for long working hours and can run for up to 60 hours before refueling!

• SwarmFarm Robotics uses “swarmbots” which are best described as a robot-tractor that can be used in a range of applications (with the ability of attaching a range of implements). With its precise guidance system, it can perform operations suitable for precision agriculture. In the application demonstrated at Gatton, the robot was following a path and running a smart spot-sprayer for weed control. The Flux AI assisted spot-sprayer is trained to recognize the crop being sprayed and activates solenoids to shoot herbicide onto weeds that are growing in the cropped beds (while recognising and avoiding the crop!). As it travels down the rows, the sound from the solenoids firing lets you know that the weeds are under attack!

• The Flux AI assisted spot-sprayer is trained to recognize the crop being sprayed and activates solenoids to shoot herbicide onto weeds that are growing in the cropped beds (while recognising and avoiding the crop!). As it travels down the rows, the sound from the solenoids firing lets you know that the weeds are under attack!