🧵 Farming robots are no longer experimental. They're deployed, profitable, and reshaping agriculture. In orchards, vineyards, vegetable fields, and beyond, they're tackling labor shortages, precision spraying, and chemical reduction at scale. This is how robotics is quietly becoming the backbone of next-gen agriculture [Save this thread for later 📌]

The global farm labor crisis isn’t new, but automation’s response finally is. From autonomous tractors to drone-mounted crop scouts, robots are now performing end-to-end workflows: 🌱 Planting 🧠 Monitoring 🤖 Weeding 🌾 Harvesting And they’re getting smarter with each season.

John Deere made its biggest robotic play yet: acquiring GUSS Automation, a leader in autonomous sprayers. 🧃 2.6M acres sprayed 🚜 500K operational hours 🔋 90% chemical reduction The message is clear, precision ag isn’t just about data. It’s about machines that act on it.

Then there’s FarmWise, using AI-powered weeders that operate in the field without supervision. No pesticides. No human fatigue. Just a robot pulling unwanted plants at industrial scale. It’s the Uber for weeding, but built on machine vision and torque.

Seattle-based Carbon Robotics took agricultural robotics a step further with its LaserWeeder G2. It uses deep computer vision, and dozens of CO₂ lasers to identify and vaporize weeds at sub-millimeter precision, processing 4.7M images per hour, zapping up to 600,000 weeds per hour, and leaving soils untouched. Globally, it's deployed over 150 units, killed 30B+ weeds across 100+ crops, and is now scaling globally with modular models.

Startups aren’t standing still. 🟢 Bonsai Robotics raised $15M to build autonomous nut harvesters 🟠 Designed for dusty orchards with minimal visibility 🔧 Trained on LIDAR + edge AI Goal: replace seasonal labor with full-time automation, no GPS needed.

In Australia, SwarmFarm Robotics is building an open platform for modular, right-to-repair farm bots. Each robot, named “Robbie” or “Bottomley Potts” can spray, seed, or cultivate. Farming becomes scalable, decentralized, and resilient. Their slogan? “Let robots do the dirty work.”

Why this matters: → $30B+ global ag labor shortage → Stricter environmental regs → Pressure for local, sustainable production Ag robotics isn’t a moonshot. It’s an infrastructure layer, like tractors were in 1910.

The future of farming won’t look like Wall-E. It’ll look like swarms of compact robots, working soil gently, responding in real time, and learning from each harvest. Less brute force. More brains, less runoff, and more resilience. The robot harvest has already begun 🌾

Using drones (rather than just having robotic arms on the harvester) seems like a gimmick and wildly inefficient. The power alone required to keep the drones just hovering seems excessive.

thx, although seems like tevel is doing great these days. these drones are much cheaper to produce than regular ground machines, so the business case might be actually there for this specific fruit picking approach

@chuckmonkey2010 Bro. They're literally tethered to a ground vehicle...

@lukas_m_ziegler ok bro. but they are still drawing power -- and using far more power to hover then a robotic arm would use.

1. This is possibly the most impractical and cost-inefficient use of drones. This is the definition of solving a problem that doesn't exist. 2. This video is at least 1 year old. Stop posting old stuff as if it's new.

And so it begins.

This video is from 2023, Founded in 2017 by Yaniv Maor, Tevel is an Israeli robotics startup that develops Flying Autonomous Robots™ (FARs) for fruit harvesting.

this thread is amazing!! 🙏 any tips on how to get started? (hands-on and not looking for a job)

good question, physical a completely different matter than digital. you are allowed here to break things, build them again, learn from it, build, and break and again... i think, doing by learning, and accomplishing project by project, increasing the level of complexity!

Thanks 🙏 I’m going to be sharing my progress on YouTube too

Good lord a drone picking one by one like that is not efficient

There's no way this is profitable.

I just want a small one for pulling weeds in my little garden

Hi what companies are worth following thx

Reminds me a bit of this

I picked apples as a teenager, this robot isn't earning enough money for gas, let alone a living wage. Personally I welcome my new robot overlords, but this is pathetic.

All for automation but this is probably the worst solution you could possibly think of Can think of 0 tangible benefits of 6 tethered drones on a cart 😭

What's cost to implement? Then cost of upkeep and maintenance? Can family farms afford these systems?

overly complicated, a robotic arm with extensors is more than enough, or a Mexican.

We only have a labor shortage cause they kidnapped all the labor.

Tesla Optimus is about to pick apples 10x as fast as this, and 10x cheaper. GO Tesla!

seems like a slow process than just putting a shaker underneath and shaking the entire thing.

@BrianRoemmele

anyone interested in the future of farming and robotics will enjoy this essay:

Farming robots are truly revolutionizing agriculture! From precision spraying to tackling labor shortages, they’re reshaping how we approach farming at scale. Exciting to see robotics becoming a core part of the next-gen agricultural landscape!

Look forward to seeing these on @ClarksonsFarm1 🤣

"No damn robot is ever going to take my j... oh, wait a minute..."

@Krommsan Literally looks like a scene from a sci-fi movie. Wow!😮

@AlessaCaye The question is who is gonna be left with a salary in the future to be able to buy that food...

Incredible thread, thanks for sharing. I read Tony Seba's report in 2021 on precision fermentation and how robots, AI and science was going to disrupt agriculture and the cow. Wild to see it beginning to take shape.

This is why I have stopped buying supermarket fruit. The factories where it is grown are concerned only with profit so they are being pumped up with water and other chemicals to fetch a higher price when sold by weight. Small ethnic markets have better quality.

they are so cute. 😍 I hope they can be used if I am an Administrator of a Great City.

Robots can operate 24/7, performing labor-intensive tasks such as planting, harvesting, weeding, and spraying with greater speed and accuracy than human labor. For instance, robotic harvesters like those developed by FFRobotics can pick fruit 10 times faster than humans, significantly boosting output. Evolution of sustainable energy has become a defining story of our time. From early days of harnessing wind to today’s cuttting- edge solar, wind and bioenergy technologies, our approach to powering society has undergone remarkable transformation. This thread will explore milestones, innovations, and ongoing efforts that have shaped the sustainable energy landscape- highlighting how far we’ve come, the obstacles we’ve overcome, and the exciting possibilities that lie ahead for a cleaner, more resilient planet

Climate change isn’t going to affect these robots? The weather will be more or less HAARP’d?

@MrMorrisGames they only went and heckin did it

@luddynski @Una_Boomer1956 @iloveminibot taggo birbo così passa al lato oscuro delle batterie cinesi in agricoltura meccanizzata

bUt tHiNk oF tHe iMmiGrAnTs!!🤡 lol 😆

Man, that's slow! That 'lil it needs an apron!

Wow, this looks very interesting. I am not able to see from the video though, as agriculture not only happens next to cities so that gps is always available but mostly not really, are the drones depicted/recorded here spatially aware? Like are they able to communicate with one another or are they solely relying on gps positioning, maybe sensors? My question to this, @lukas_m_ziegler cause i am curious if you ever heard about the main developer of the #depin for #robotics out there, the name is of course @AukiNetwork