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DECATUR, Illinois — A new machine is on the market that lets farmers uses lasers to kill weeds which can be destructive for crops.
“The guy said he needed a solution with weeding that didn’t disturb the soil and didn’t harm the crop,” John Mey with Carbon Robotics said.
That dilemma led Carbon Robotics and employees like Mey to create the LaserWeeder in 2018. It is operational in 14 countries. It was created on the West Coast, primarily for specialty crops like broccoli and carrots. However, the machine works on 100 different crops, including organic corn and soybeans, and is making its way to the Midwest.
READ MORE: Laser weeder, autonomous tractors highlight new ag tech at Farm Progress Show
“This essentially is a supercomputer. Every single one of these modules has Nvidia processors and a ton of compute power, so we’re able to identify and shoot up to 10,000 weeds per minute,” Brett Goodwin, vice president of marketing at Carbon Robotics, said.
About 10 days after farmers plant their crops, they run the LaserWeeder over the crops two times. The company believes the device helps cut down on labor costs.
“What happens is then the plants grow, and now they leaf out and they shade out the sun, and so the weeds don’t grow,” Goodwin said.
The machine runs on electricity and needs the lift capacity of a John Deere 8R tractor. The unit costs around $1.6 million.
“I think if we look at the future of farming, we’re going to see just more and more automation and more and more autonomy and the ability to kind of stop the rising and variable input costs,” Goodwin said. “So, now we have a predictable cost for maintaining weed control.”
