The ground-breaking Hands-free Hectare project (see FW issue of 24 March 2017), which sought to grow a crop using only autonomous vehicles, has come to an end with a successful harvest.
The use of smaller agricultural machines can improve soil and plant health. This has been the premise of a team of researchers from Harper Adams University and farming service company Precision Decisions in the UK. To prove the concept, the team ran the Hands-free Hectare project, becoming the first ‘farmers’ to plant, grow and harvest a crop without human intervention; only small autonomous vehicles and drones were used.
The project started in October 2016 and ended towards the end of last year.
“There’s been a focus in recent years on making farming more precise, but the larger machines the industry is using aren’t compatible with this method of working,” says Jonathan Gill, a researcher at Harper Adams University. “They’re also so heavy they’re damaging the land.”
Esta historia es de la edición February 2, 2018 de Farmer's Weekly.
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Esta historia es de la edición February 2, 2018 de Farmer's Weekly.
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