At last week’s 3^rd AgTech Field Demo: Automated and Robotic Technologies in Yuma, AZ, 15 of the latest automated and robotic technologies were demonstrated in the field. Most were designed to control weeds in vegetable crops. Several of the technologies demonstrated are brand new to the Yuma, AZ area, still under development and/or have never been shown to a general audience. Some of the new technologies demoed included an autonomous robotic weed puller, a precision spot sprayer, and a laser weeder (Fig. 1). These technologies are intriguing and offer a different approach to automated weeding systems currently on the market. It will be interesting to see how these machines fit into our current cropping systems and evolve in the future. Obviously, to be commercially viable, the machines must be cost effective. If interested, I would be more than happy to work with you to help conduct and design experiments for assessing weeding machine performance – % weed control, hand weeding labor savings, machine work rate (acres/hour), crop yield, operating cost, etc. Please feel free to contact me anytime at siemens@cals.arizona.edu.

Fig. 1. Automated and robotic weeding technologies demonstrated at the
University of Arizona’s 3^rd AgTech Field Demo included a) Nexus
Robotics’¹ autonomous weeding pulling robot, b) Mantis Ag Technology’s spot
spray weeder and c) Carbon Robotics’ laser weeder.