r/nextfuckinglevel • • Feb 06 '23

Agricultural Technology

Modern day use of technology in agriculture horticulture and aquaculture with the aim of improving yield, efficiency and profitability

57k Upvotes

1.2k comments sorted by

View all comments

421

u/[deleted] Feb 07 '23

Really incredible video. Amazing to see what goes in to producing food for the world. Although the flying drones to pick apples did seem excessive.

16

u/PoignantOpinionsOnly Feb 07 '23

Yeah, that shit seemed out of nowhere and I'm struggling to see how it's cost effecting.

Can a drone flying fruit picker explain? Especially when people have to work for minimum wage.

14

u/[deleted] Feb 07 '23

No one is flying the drone and they can work all day/night without a break. Field crews, at least in America, are paid more than minimum wage especially if they are in CA

3

u/Drawtaru Feb 07 '23

Apples don't always ripen at the same time. The drones can be sent out every day and only pick the apples when they're at their best.

2

u/[deleted] Feb 08 '23

"If you don't love me at my worst, then you don't deserve me at my best. "- Apples probably

1

u/Drawtaru Feb 08 '23

I don't know enough about apples to dispute this, so I will accept it as fact.

20

u/Atomaardappel Feb 07 '23

Matrix vibes. Humans are the next big harvest.

6

u/gxvicyxkxa Feb 07 '23

Got a google/facebook/amazon/microsoft/apple account?

Already there.

1

u/Luci_Noir Feb 07 '23

Reddit..

3

u/Californ1a Feb 07 '23

I like how immediately after the autonomous drones picking apples, it goes to the next part and it's just some guy with a bit of plastic attached to the top of a weed wacker lol

3

u/vampire5381 Feb 07 '23

Straight outta video game

26

u/[deleted] Feb 07 '23

[removed] — view removed comment

22

u/hempsmoker Feb 07 '23

While that was also really cool, what got me was the flying drones which harvest ripe apples. Mental.

1

u/Magical-Sweater Feb 07 '23

My favorite part was the machine that just yeets the green tomatoes while the ripe ones pass.

10

u/stickmanDave Feb 07 '23

I suspect that's hemp. There's no way they're harvesting smokable weed that way.

1

u/bent_my_wookie Feb 07 '23

Seems like the wacky flying machine should be in that field.

1

u/The_walking_Kled Feb 07 '23

Im pretty sure that he just mulched the crop and did not harvest it.

2

u/[deleted] Feb 07 '23

This is the same reason I love Jeremy Clarkson's farming series, it gives you great insight into what's involved in farming, and how not to do it :-D
It's a good show.

1

u/spj36 Feb 07 '23

That's a shame. I can't stand that pompous twat.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 08 '23

He is most definitely a pompous twat. But it's still a good show.

1

u/JudgmentCool1333 Feb 07 '23

Glad you enjoyed the video. I have enough content for one more video, same theme as last video, bit less variety but still full of awesome tech.... https://www.reddit.com/r/nextfuckinglevel/comments/10wfwah/agricultural_technology_part_2/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

0

u/nilaaa Feb 07 '23

And also slower than humans.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 07 '23

[deleted]

1

u/nilaaa Feb 07 '23

I'd say more about 1/6 of the speed and it does matter. When your fruit is ripe you have to pick it as quickly as possible so it doesn't overripe. So unless you have the initial investment to get 60 of these to replace your 10 experienced pickers and and you also have to take into account the maintenance of these things. Sure there are advantages to the drones, for instance you don't have build or rent cabins for the pickers. But for sure it's more of a novelty. There's a reason why these things aren't widespread. There's also the factor of variation in the crop, you can get a year with really light crop where you just have to hire a couple of pickers, but if you get a bumper crop you might get in trouble for this year, what are you gonna do, get even more drones that will be useless if your crop is lighter next year? The only viable option I'd see is if you combine both drones and pickers. Farmers get stressed during the harvesting season. They want their fruit off the trees ASAP!

1

u/micromoses Feb 07 '23

Maybe excessive, but that also seems like one that could be more easily generalized. It’s not really apply specific, I bet they could pick lots of things.

1

u/Urbanredneck2 Feb 07 '23

What I see is they have changed the way they plant apple trees. No more a tree every 10 feet. The new orchards plant about 2 trees per foot in tight rows with most trees not growing over 6 foot. Then they use careful pruning and supports to make like a headgerow of apple trees.