Farmers are reaching a new level. Chinese farmers have begun destroying weeds with high-precision lasers. Smart agricultural equipment identifies and destroys harmful plants, reducing the use of… | Anton Makarevich | 18 comments Anton Makarevich 2d Report this post Farmers are reaching a new level. Chinese farmers have begun destroying weeds with high-precision lasers. Smart agricultural equipment identifies and destroys harmful plants, reducing the use of pesticides. …more 166 18 Comments Like Comment Share Copy LinkedIn Facebook X Thomas B. Ellsworth 20h Report this comment Looks sus/ AI-ish. And yet China still sends people out into the the fields to manually pollinate plants, sweep the streets with switch brooms, etc.. The tension between improving efficiency through technology and maintaining high employment levels for the masses to stave off mass discontent and potentially revolution is palpable. Regarding pesticide usage, organic farming has been doing without pesticides and petroleum derived fertilizers for decades, with cost differentials vs. traditional highly mechanized chemo farming decreasing over the years. One doesn't need to feed a country using hyper scale farming over a small percentage of arable land. Like Reply 3 Reactions 4 Reactions Michael Ansolis 2d Report this comment I wonder how much power it takes to power all those lasers Like Reply 1 Reaction 2 Reactions Peter Dawes 4h Report this comment This is a job for a drone. Light weight and no tractor and fully electric which is solar powered just like a robot vacuum cleaner. Like Reply 1 Reaction Jan Bennett 22h Report this comment If the imagery is to be believed it's beautiful progress. Want more of this. Less chemicals... Very easy to generalise for variety of targets - inc. bugs perhaps depending on compute speeds. Maybe a little hard to scale up. But maybe no hurry - weeds and bugs are typically available as targets for days on end. Pessimist in me says "Wait for big pharma to move to kill it or own it... (or both)." Thank you Anton. Like Reply 1 Reaction Alexander Perkalsky 1d Report this comment But pesticides are nothing to do with weeds.. Like Reply 2 Reactions 3 Reactions Steve Casselman 6h Report this comment This is very cool. On the ironic side, it's good practice for our future overlords. Like Reply 1 Reaction Thomas David 1d Report this comment This only works when the plants are small I suppose, no? Once they get to be a foot tall avoiding the plants becomes impossible I suppose... Like Reply 1 Reaction 2 Reactions Ankesh Chandra 1d Report this comment Nice invention but not needed for farming. Weeds are needed Like Reply 1 Reaction 2 Reactions Richard Boulanger 1h Report this comment Did you see Clarkson Farm ? Like Reply 1 Reaction See more comments To view or add a comment, sign in