Collaborate Disseminate
‘Clean Meat’ is a new book by Paul Shapiro about the past, present, and future of lab-grown meat. Continue reading Chicken Might Be the First Lab-Grown Meat to Make It to Your Grocery Store
His work could help astronauts grow tomatoes on the Red Planet one day. Continue reading This Biologist Wants to Grow Vegetables on Mars
Though logging has a greater overall impact, growing pot can be even more destructive on a per-unit-area basis, according to a recent study. Continue reading Illegal Weed Can Be Worse for Forests than Logging
When a rainforest is clearcut for agricultural use, we only see the surface problems: fewer trees, destruction of plant and animal habitats, and countless other negative effects on the environment. A lurking problem, however, is that the soil is often non-ideal for farming. When the soil is exhausted, the farmers move further into the rainforest and repeat the process.
In the Amazon, however, there are pockets of man-made soil that are incredibly nutrient-dense. Figuring out how to make this soil, known as Terra Preta, on a massive scale would limit the amount of forest destruction by providing farmers a soil …read more
“I’ve got some looks from cops but they just kind of nod at me.” Continue reading Out for a Rip in a DIY Monster Truck Made of Spare Tractor Parts
Though cows can swim better than you might think, they can’t tread water forever. Continue reading Islands of Starving Cows Discovered After Hurricane Harvey
We like that the Weedinator Project is thinking big for this year’s Hackaday Prize! This ambitious project by [TegwynTwmffat] is building on a previous effort, which was a tractor mounted weeding machine (shown above). It mercilessly shredded any weeds; the way it did this was by tilling everything that existed between orderly rows of growing leeks. The system worked, but it really wasn’t accurate enough. We suspect it had a nasty habit of mercilessly shredding the occasional leek. The new version takes a different approach.
The new Weedinator will be an autonomous robotic rover using a combination of GPS and …read more
Continue reading Hackaday Prize Entry: The Weedinator Project, Now with Flame
As the world’s population continues to increase, more food will be needed for all the extra mouths to feed. Unfortunately, there’s not a whole lot of untapped available farmland. To produce extra food, crop yields need to increase. [Vignesh Ravichandran] is tackling this with the Farmcorder – a device for detecting crop nutrition levels.
The device centers around using spectroscopy to measure the chlorophyll content of leaves. This information can then be used to make educated decisions on the fertilizer required to maximize plant yield. In the past, this has been achieved with expensive bespoke devices, or, at the other …read more
Continue reading Hackaday Prize Entry: Crop Data For Improved Yields
As the world’s population continues to increase, more food will be needed for all the extra mouths to feed. Unfortunately, there’s not a whole lot of untapped available farmland. To produce extra food, crop yields need to increase. [Vignesh Ravichandran] is tackling this with the Farmcorder – a device for detecting crop nutrition levels.
The device centers around using spectroscopy to measure the chlorophyll content of leaves. This information can then be used to make educated decisions on the fertilizer required to maximize plant yield. In the past, this has been achieved with expensive bespoke devices, or, at the other …read more
Continue reading Hackaday Prize Entry: Crop Data For Improved Yields
Oakland, Calif.-based Ceres Imaging has raised $5 million in a Series A investment led by Romulus Capital. The startup uses cameras, sensors and software to pinpoint crop stress in the field for farmers, so that they can apply herbicides, pesticides and irrigation just where it’s needed. Ceres, like several other startups, started out with the notion to build a drone just for… Read More Continue reading Ceres Imaging raises $5 million to pinpoint crop stress for farmers
