Potato Grower

52 POTATO GROWER | FEBRUARY 2019 Maximizing Potato Yield Starts at Planting For more information visit greentronics.com or contact us at 519-669-4698 As a leader in precision agriculture systems we off er unique solutions specifi cally designed with the root and vegetable producer in mind. We can give you the harvest details with a yield monitor RiteDepth - Automatic Depth Controller Sonar Sensor Technology For More Uniform Planting Depth • Uniform seeding depth is important to achieve uniform emergence which will in turn help with timing and effi cacy of spray & fertilizer applications. • Sonar sensors improve uniformity while reducing the need for frequent adjustments. • Sonar sensors are small, out of the way, allowing a clear view of the planter and cause no obstruction to stubble and trash from previous crops. 1964-10Greentronics12h.indd 1 10/11/18 2:33 PM Among other crops, Gore's lab focuses on corn and the development of variations that are best suited to the short growing season and weather conditions. His lab employs camera-wielding UAVs— drones—and four-wheeled robots to perform real-time diagnostics of scores of corn varieties at the Musgrave Research Farm in Aurora, N.Y., about 24 miles north of Cornell's campus. This past summer, his shared three-acre cornfield contained approximately 800 highly diverse hybrids, each in two-row mini-plots, from which his team will try to identify the best varieties for growing in the upstate region. Gore's team—in collaboration with the lab of Ed Buckler, adjunct professor of plant breeding and genetics—is developing AI for the autonomous vehicles that can count individual plants, measure plant height and check individual leaves for disease, among other tasks. He can perform diagnostics on the plant at any point in its growth process. "It's like knowing a baseball player's batting average in July, as opposed to just at the end of the season," Gore says. "We're trying to identify the key plant developmental stage that you can do the phenotyping on, so that it could be predictive of yield at the end of the season. "If you had that capability," he continues, "then you'd know what plants to cross-breed before the pollen's even been shed." By using technology to detect key traits mid-season, Gore says, he can perhaps develop more precise breeding methods, and shorten the breeding timeline "from six to eight years, to maybe four or five" as the technologies are developed. He envisions a day when a robot or drone can not only facilitate rapid phenotyping, but also detect fungal diseases or weeds and immediately dispense a fungicide or herbicide in a precise dose, at just the right coordinate in the field. And while there will always be humans on a farm, Gore thinks a role reversal could be in the offing. "If we can train the robots, perhaps someday the robots will be training us to do very precise plant breeding," he says. "We have more than 800 highly diverse hybrids in this field [at Musgrave]. Which one is the best for growing here, and why? Those are the questions we're trying to answer. … We're trying to closely model the biological reality of a plant. I would argue that, over time, robots can probably do it even better than human beings. That's what we're kind of on the cusp of right now." Developing a corn variety that's best suited for upstate New York is just one of many challenges Gore and researchers like him are tackling as the specter of feeding 10 billion people looms. "All of these tools are going to be important for food and nutrition security," he says. "How do we figure out how to use these technologies for crops such as cassava, rice or wheat, that all these developing nations are relying on for nourishment? How do we turn the engine of evolution faster in plant breeding? We have to totally change the paradigm that we've been in for the past 10,000 years."

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