Saturday, December 08, 2012

an alternative statement of purpose


Cultibotics is about the application of robotics to the cultivation of plants for food, animal feed and forage, for flowers and foliage, for fiber, fuel and feedstocks, for erosion abatement, soil enrichment and landscape enhancement, and for habitat and the preservation of biodiversity. It is also about an approach to robotics that is informed by the best practices of horticulture: minimal tillage, composting, mulch, continuous ground cover, beneficial plant combinations (polyculture), the use of perennials (permaculture), biological methods of pest control, pruning of infested and diseased plant materials, the avoidance of unnecessary soil disturbance or compaction, and so forth. The dream is that robotics can serve as the means by which these best practices can be made to scale to millions of acres.

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