Written by Charlotte Cunningham
The Small Robot Company has officially launched its Wilma farmbot – the brains behind the team of agri-robots – at REAP 2020. Charlotte Cunningham reports. According to SRC, Wilma provides ‘per plant intelligence’ using precise information gleaned by Tom, the scouting robot, on the health of the plant. If she identifies the plant as a weed then Dick – the world’s first non-chemical robotic weeder – is dispatched to zap it. “The first commercial version of Wilma is being unveiled at REAP. She creates a per-plant crop map and is then AI-enabled to recognise disease and the nutrient status of the plant, enabling precision weeding by the farmbots and, in the future, application of water, nutrients or fungicide as appropriate – cutting chemical use and emissions,” explains Ben Scott-Robinson, CEO and co-founder of SRC. “Wilma can direct Dick on the most effective course across the field. The robot then kills the weeds, such as blackgrass, using the Rootwave technology, which is electric so there is no problem with resistance.” “In a post-glyphosate world the ability to quickly kill pernicious weeds as they appear means that farmers don’t need to wait to drill and can take the opportunity to get crops…
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