Five farm kit innovations to watch out for

Farm Innovations

There is a raft of cutting-edge machinery wending its way towards UK farms, but which will become commonplace in the next decade?

The unrelenting pace of innovation in agriculture is spawning a new wave of technological solutions to some of farming’s perennial problems.

Crippling labour shortages, increasing environmental pressures and a shrinking arsenal of plant protection products are just some areas where scientists, engineers and academics have stepped in to provide answers. But, although the speed of development has been rapid, it often takes years for emerging technology to make it onto real farms.

With help from experts Kit Franklin, principal investigator for Harper Adams University’s Hands Free Farm project, and Will Mumford, founder of precision farming firm AS Communications, we pick out five technologies that could appear in a farmyard near you over the next decade.

1. Driverless tractors

Driverless tractor technology has been around for years, but the move from working prototype to mainstream production has been achingly slow.

That could soon change, with a handful of firms ready to put tractors on sale. John Deere is a front runner, with a driverless version of its 8R tractor already available in some countries. Dutch robotic firm AgXeed, has also been appointing dealers for its range of Agbot machines. One of these is Will Mumford, who recently signed a deal to distribute AgXeed through a new arm of his precision farming business, ASC Automation.

He sees immediate roles for these tractors carrying out simple, mundane tasks, such as cultivating or rolling.

“The thing I like about the AgXeed is that it can do the same job as a conventional tractor, and carry out arable work with implements farmers have already got.”

There is also potential for these tractors to soon take on more complex tasks, such as fertiliser spreading.

“Initially, jobs like this will need monitoring closely, but even if someone stays with it the whole time, it saves another person having to do the job of loading,” he says.

Having spent five years developing and operating driverless tractors on the Hands Free Hectare and Hands Free Farm projects, Kit Franklin also reckons the technology is sufficiently advanced to start doing real work.

“To start with, I see them working best with other tractors in a field – one operator could be driving, carrying out the most complex task, while monitoring one or two driverless machines doing simpler work.”

As well as off-the-shelf autonomous machines, several firms are working on retrofit kits to convert existing tractors to work without a driver. US firm Sabanto, for example, built a system to convert small Kubota tractors. It has fitted several models with the kit, set up a contracting firm, and spent the past few years cultivating and planting crops for farmers. Farmscan Ag, one partner of the Hands Free Farm project, also has a system close to production.

“GPS and autosteer started out with retrofit kits, so it’s a fair assumption these will also play a role in driverless tractors, particularly for the first few years,” says Mr Franklin.

2. Agbots

Agbots are already taking off in specialist sectors and there is likely to be wider adoption of these as farmers see their potential.

An example already finding success is Danish-built FarmDroid, imported by Opico. This solar-powered machine uses precise GPS technology to plant seeds and record their exact location. It can then run back through to weed, safely dodging the crop.

“The core market is existing veg growers, but these tools also offer a way for conventional arable growers to diversify,” says Mr Franklin.

“For a modest investment, it allows any farmer to start growing vegetables without having to buy a fleet of expensive equipment and find staff to weed crops.”

Small, specialist machines like these are unlikely to play a big role in broad- acre arable operations for the foreseeable future. However, firms such as the Small Robot Company are developing ways for small autonomous vehicles to improve the efficiency of large-scale arable equipment. Its Per Plant Intelligence Service uses a robot to accurately assess the weed burden in a field, producing an application map that a large boom sprayer with individual nozzle control can work to.

The next stage is for these tools to start doing some application work themselves.

3. Drones

The popularity of drones has boomed recently and organisations have been busy working out how they can benefit farmers. Current uses include surveying and mapping fields, monitoring crop health and weed identification. The next big step is to use drones for crop spraying or applying granular products such as slug pellets.

Several models already exist with this capability, such as the DJI Agras, the Volocopter built in conjunction with John Deere, and the XAG P30. However, current legislation dictates they cannot be used in the UK without special permission. Several firms are working with organisations such as the Civil Aviation Authority and HSE to obtain the relevant approvals and, if successful, spraying drones could soon be working in fields.

They are unlikely to replace conventional boom sprayers, but they could be useful for spot applications, and working when ground conditions are too soft for wheeled or tracked sprayers to travel.

4. See-and-spray technology

Technology for identifying and spraying weeds in a crop already exists, but itis expensive and has not been widely adopted on farms. This is expected to change over the next decade, allowing farmers to reduce chemical use by only applying it where needed.

“Applying products in a more targeted way and cutting the amount applied can only be a good thing,” says Mr Franklin.

One firm leading the charge is Trimble-owned Bilberry, which has an intelligent spot spraying system that can identify green weeds in a green crop and treat them with a targeted dose of chemical in a single operation.

Like most systems of this type, it uses a series of cameras to take images of the crop canopy before artificial intelligence identifies any undesirables that need treating.

Once a weed has been spotted, the system triggers the relevant nozzles on the sprayer boom to open just long enough for them to hit their target. All this happens in a fraction of a second, so the machine can be driven at speeds near that of a conventional sprayer.

Bilberry already has a system working on a Dammann self-propelled sprayer run by Dyson Farming, which has given impressive results over the past two years.

Other firms to watch out for include Greeneye, Carbon Bee, John Deere, and small Scottish start-up Taylor Technologies, which has a low-cost prototype spot sprayer for treating weeds in grassland.

4. Alternative fuels

Increasing pressure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture has prompted several manufacturers to develop alternative sources of power to the diesel engine.The main contenders are batteries, methane and hydrogen, but which is the most likely to be adopted?

It is already possible to buy some small agricultural machines with battery power, such as telehandlers and loaders from JCB, Merlo and Weidemann, plus a handful of compact tractors.

The problem is these lack the power and range to be of use to most con- ventional farming operations. Automation could help give battery power a bigger role in future though, allowing smaller battery-powered tractors to work in groups and clock up long hours in order to cover larger areas. In the medium term, the most credible alternatives to fossil fuels are methane and hydrogen.

New Holland has been developing methane-powered tractors for years and has a production model that will soon go on sale. Farmers can run these on gas produced by an anaerobic digester or, thanks to the work of Cornish firm Bennamann, on waste methane collected from slurry stores. Hydrogen is also a serious contender for large agricultural machinery, with JCB being one of the first to embrace the technology.

Its gas-fired four-cylinder engine can match the output of its diesel engines, meaning it can be slotted into its range of telehandlers and excavators without any performance loss.

The engine is almost ready to go into production, but success will depend on having a reliable supply of green hydrogen to run on.

This article is an extract from CropFocus magazine, if you would like to sign up for the next issue please sign up here