ROBOTS and AI and DRONES, OH MY! By Chelsea Kellner
When CALS alumnus and tobacco grower Brandon Batten needed to streamline his baling process 10 years ago, he designed and built the automation himself. His homemade hydraulic-powered conveyors, scales and overhead chain-pulley system cut a daylong process down to an hour.
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CALS MAGAZINE
Now, Batten uses a drone to scout the fields of his 600acre Johnston County farm. He logs in to a smartphone app every morning to track year-to-year irrigation, rainfall and fertilization data for each field. And he can program his tractor to drive itself, accurate down to the half-inch. Tech-powered precision agriculture is a big part of how many growers are strategizing to survive in an increasingly competitive global market, where they’re expected to produce more food even as land is lost to urbanization and time is lost to paperwork.
