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Agricultural Technology
Agricultural technology or agrotechnology (abbreviated agtech, agritech, AgriTech, or agrotech) is the use of technology in agriculture, horticulture, and aquaculture with the aim of improving yield, efficiency, and profitability. Agricultural technology can be products, services or applications derived from agriculture that improve various input/output processes. Advances in agricultural science, agronomy, and agricultural engineering have led to applied developments in agricultural technology. History The history of agriculture has been shaped by technological advances. Historians have described a number of agricultural revolutions, which identify major shifts in agricultural practice and productivity. These revolutions have been closely connected to technological improvements. Irrigation technology was developed independently by a number of different cultures, with the earliest known examples dated to the 6th millennium BCE in Khuzistan in the south-west of present-day Iran. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Technology
Technology is the application of knowledge to reach practical goals in a specifiable and Reproducibility, reproducible way. The word ''technology'' may also mean the product of such an endeavor. The use of technology is widely prevalent in medicine, science, Industry (economics), industry, communication, transportation, and daily life. Technologies include physical objects like Kitchen utensil, utensils or machines and intangible Tool, tools such as software. Many technological advancements have led to societal changes. The earliest known technology is the stone tool, used in the Prehistory, prehistoric era, followed by Control of fire by early humans, fire use, which contributed to the Brain size, growth of the human brain and the development of language in the Pleistocene, Ice Age. The invention of the wheel in the Bronze Age enabled wider travel and the creation of more complex machines. Recent technological developments, including the printing press, the telephone, and the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Threshing Machine
A threshing machine or a thresher is a piece of farm equipment that threshes grain, that is, it removes the seeds from the stalks and husks. It does so by beating the plant to make the seeds fall out. Before such machines were developed, threshing was done by hand with flails: such hand threshing was very laborious and time-consuming, taking about one-quarter of agricultural labour by the 18th century. Mechanization of this process removed a substantial amount of drudgery from farm labour. The first threshing machine was invented circa 1786 by the Scottish engineer Andrew Meikle, and the subsequent adoption of such machines was one of the earlier examples of the mechanization of agriculture. During the 19th century, threshers and mechanical reapers and reaper-binders gradually became widespread and made grain production much less laborious. Michael Stirling is said to have invented a rotary threshing machine in 1758 which for forty years was used to process all the corn on ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Driverless Tractor
A driverless tractor is an autonomous farm vehicle that delivers a high tractive effort (or torque) at slow speeds for the purposes of tillage and other agricultural tasks. It is considered driverless because it operates without the presence of a human inside the tractor itself. Like other unmanned ground vehicles, they are programmed to independently observe their position, decide speed, and avoid obstacles such as people, animals, or objects in the field while performing their task. The various driverless tractors are split into full autonomous technology and supervised autonomy. The idea of the driverless tractor appears as early as 1940, but the concept has significantly evolved in the last few years. The tractors use GPS and other wireless technologies to farm land without requiring a driver. They operate simply with the aid of a supervisor monitoring the progress at a control station or with a manned tractor in lead. History The idea of a driverless tractor has been around ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Agricultural Drone
An agricultural drone is an unmanned aerial vehicle used in agriculture operations, mostly in yield optimization and in monitoring crop growth and crop production. Agricultural drones provide information on crop growth stages, crop health, and soil variations. Multispectral sensors are used on agricultural drones to image electromagnetic radiation beyond the visible spectrum, including near-infrared and short-wave infrared. Legality As drones entered use in agriculture, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) encouraged farmers to use this new technology to monitor their fields. However, with the unexpected boom of agricultural drones, the FAA quickly retracted such encouragement, pending new rules and regulations. With incidents such as drones crashing into crop dusters, the FAA and the AFBF (American Farm Bureau Federation) began discussions to agree on regulations that would allow the beneficial use of such drones in a safe and efficient manner. In 2016, the FAA published r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Agricultural Robot
An agricultural robot is a robot deployed for agricultural purposes. The main area of application of robots in agriculture today is at the harvesting stage. Emerging applications of robots or drones in agriculture include weed control, cloud seeding, planting seeds, harvesting, environmental monitoring and soil analysis. According to Verified Market Research, the agricultural robots market is expected to reach $11.58 billion by 2025. General Fruit picking robots, driverless tractor / sprayers, and sheep shearing robots are designed to replace human labor. In most cases, a lot of factors have to be considered (e.g., the size and color of the fruit to be picked) before the commencement of a task. Robots can be used for other horticultural tasks such as pruning, weeding, spraying and monitoring. Robots can also be used in livestock applications (livestock robotics) such as automatic milking, washing and castrating. Robots like these have many benefits for the agricultura ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Information Age
The Information Age (also known as the Computer Age, Digital Age, Silicon Age, or New Media Age) is a historical period that began in the mid-20th century. It is characterized by a rapid shift from traditional industries, as established during the Industrial Revolution, to an economy centered on information technology. The onset of the Information Age has been linked to the development of the transistor in 1947, the optical amplifier in 1957, and Unix time, which began on January 1, 1970 and serves as the basis for Coordinated Universal Time and the Network Time Protocol. These technological advances have had a significant impact on the way information is processed and transmitted. According to the United Nations Public Administration Network, the Information Age was formed by capitalizing on computer microminiaturization advances, which led to modernized information systems and internet communications as the driving force of social evolution. Overview of early develop ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aeroponics
Aeroponics is the process of growing plants in the air or mist environment without soil or an aggregate medium. The word "aeroponic" is derived from the Greek meanings of ''aer'' ("air") and ''ponos'' ("labour"). It is a subset of hydroponics, since water is used in aeroponics to transmit nutrients. Methods The basic principle of aeroponic growing is to grow plants suspended in a closed or semi-closed environment by spraying the plant's dangling roots and lower stem with an atomized or sprayed, nutrient-rich water solution.Stoner, R.J. and J.M. Clawson (1997-1998). ''A High Performance, Gravity Insensitive, Enclosed Aeroponic System for Food Production in Space.'' Principal Investigator, NASA SBIR NAS10-98030. The leaves and crown, often called the canopy, extend above. The roots of the plant are separated by the plant support structure. Often, closed-cell foam is compressed around the lower stem and inserted into an opening in the aeroponic chamber, which decreases lab ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aquaponics
Aquaponics is a food production system that couples aquaculture (raising aquatic animals such as fish, crayfish, snails or prawns in tanks) with hydroponics (cultivating plants in water) whereby the nutrient-rich aquaculture water is fed to hydroponically grown plants. As existing hydroponic and aquaculture farming techniques form the basis of all aquaponic systems, the size, complexity, and types of foods grown in an aquaponic system can vary as much as any system found in either distinct farming discipline. History Aquaponics has ancient roots, although there is some debate on its first occurrence: *Aztec cultivated agricultural islands known as ''chinampas'' in a system considered by some to be an early form of aquaponics for agricultural use, where plants were raised on stationary (or sometime movable) islands in lake shallows and waste materials dredged from the Chinampa canals and surrounding cities were used to manually irrigate the plants. *South China and the whole ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hydroponics
Hydroponics is a type of horticulture and a subset of hydroculture which involves growing plants, usually crops or medicinal plants, without soil, by using water-based mineral nutrient solutions in aqueous solvents. Terrestrial or aquatic plants may grow with their roots exposed to the nutritious liquid or in addition, the roots may be mechanically supported by an inert medium such as perlite, gravel, or other substrates. Despite inert media, roots can cause changes of the rhizosphere pH and root exudates can affect rhizosphere biology and physiological balance of the nutrient solution by secondary metabolites. Transgenic plants grown hydroponically allow the release of pharmaceutical proteins as part of the root exudate into the hydroponic medium. The nutrients used in hydroponic systems can come from many different organic or inorganic sources, including fish excrement, duck manure, purchased chemical fertilizers, or artificial nutrient solutions. Plants are com ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Drip Irrigation
Drip irrigation or trickle irrigation is a type of micro-irrigation system that has the potential to save water and nutrients by allowing water to drip slowly to the roots of plants, either from above the soil surface or buried below the surface. The goal is to place water directly into the root zone and minimize evaporation. Drip irrigation systems distribute water through a network of valves, pipes, tubing, and emitters. Depending on how well designed, installed, maintained, and operated it is, a drip irrigation system can be more efficient than other types of irrigation systems, such as surface irrigation or sprinkler irrigation. History Ancient China Primitive drip irrigation has been used since ancient times. ''Fan Shengzhi shu'', written in China during the first century BCE, describes the use of buried, unglazed clay pots filled with water, sometimes referred to as Ollas, as a means of irrigation. Modern development Germany: subsurface pipe Modern drip irrigation began ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Genetically Modified Crops
Genetically modified crops (GM crops) are plants used in agriculture, the DNA of which has been modified using genetic engineering methods. Plant genomes can be engineered by physical methods or by use of ''Agrobacterium'' for the delivery of sequences hosted in T-DNA binary vectors. In most cases, the aim is to introduce a new trait to the plant which does not occur naturally in the species. Examples in food crops include resistance to certain pests, diseases, environmental conditions, reduction of spoilage, resistance to chemical treatments (e.g. resistance to a herbicide), or improving the nutrient profile of the crop. Examples in non-food crops include production of pharmaceutical agents, biofuels, and other industrially useful goods, as well as for bioremediation. Farmers have widely adopted GM technology. Acreage increased from 1.7 million hectares in 1996 to 185.1 million hectares in 2016, some 12% of global cropland. As of 2016, major crop (soybean, maize, canola ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Plasticulture
The term plasticulture refers to the practice of using plastic materials in agricultural applications. The plastic materials themselves are often and broadly referred to as "ag plastics". Plasticulture ag plastics include soil fumigation film, irrigation drip tape/tubing, plastic plant packaging cord, nursery pots and bales, but the term is most often used to describe all kinds of plastic plant/soil coverings. Such coverings range from plastic mulch film, row coverings, high and low tunnels (polytunnels), to plastic greenhouses. Plastic used in agriculture was expected to include 6.7 million tons of plastic in 2019 or 2% of global plastic production. Plastic used in agriculture is hard to recycle because of contamination by agricultural chemicals. Moreover, plastic degradation into microplastics is damaging to soil health, microorganisms and beneficial organisms like earthworms. Current science is not clear if there are negative impacts on food or once food grown in plasticultu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
