BOISE, Idaho — New Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology offers a new way for crop growers to remove weeds from their fields.
Traditionally, the task of weeding began with people pulling it by hand. It evolved then to spraying the weeds by hand before a tractor took over the spraying responsibility. And for many crop growers that technique remains the way crop growers tackle weeds.
However, a new thermal tool called a laser weeder, developed by Carbon Robotics, can help farmers rid their crops of weeds without using chemicals.
The technology sits on a 20-foot trailer that connects to a tractor.
“When the weeds are incredibly small and I'm talking about the size of a dime or smaller. You want to get in and hit them because if you don't, then you're going to run into issues where the weeds will just run rampant," Kelly Moylan, who works quality control at Obendorf Farms, told KTVB.
Moylan said the problems with weeds are not the weeds themselves but the cost of chemicals and labor.
“The best way to figure that out was by using the laser to kill them," Miles Murphy, director of sales for Carbon Robotics, told KTVB.
The device combines AI software with cameras, sensors, and tractor power to achieve the job.
“By using the AI deep learning, it's able to determine the difference between a crop and a weed," Murphy said. "And then tell the lasers to ultimately eliminate the weed within a millimeter of the crop.”
The tractor operator watches the tablet inside the tractor, which will tell them how fast they need to drive based on the weed density in the field.
Currently, the technology focuses on specialty crops and can identify about 100 different ones.
“We are currently running on leafy veg, onions, carrots, those be round out the top three,” Murphy said.
The laser is targeting broadleaf, purslane, goat head, puncture vine at the Obendorf fields.
At Obendorf Farms, the tractor sprayer has an 80-foot span and can spray more acres more quickly than the laser can zap. Compared to the laser weeder which only hits about six rows at a time, but it runs all day and all night - making it the quickest form of weeding.
“In a field like the one we're in right now with about 50 acres, it probably takes us a little over 30 hours," Moylan said.
The farm has one operator during the day and another at night.
The laser tool costs upwards of a million dollars. But Obendorf Farms partnered with a farm in Texas to split the bill.
“When you have a northern land and a southern land, they might only be using this for you know, 12-14 weeks out of the year," Murphy said. "So just split the cost of the unit. It's ideal to find a partner down south so that they can then use it for their piece of the season. That's opposite from up here in the Treasure Valley.”
Corey Coles, the CFO of Obendorf Farms, said the tool will head south in about 3 to 4 weeks.
When it’s done, the goal is to have a better product at the end.
“We're trying to figure out how we can get our onions in the field to be the best they can be,” Coles said. “Sometimes you gotta start at the beginning. We wanted to limit the number of herbicides we're actually using on our onions and keep them in full growth mode instead of rehab mode throughout the season.”
Obendorf still sprays pesticides, and fungicides with their tractor.
But now for herbicides, they’ll shield spray in between their rows, and laser weed directly next to their crops, so that the chemicals no longer make contact with the onions.
“I think as labor becomes harder to find and more expensive," Murphy said. "This is ultimately the future of weed control in farming."
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