Modern Technology in Agriculture?

Question

What modern technologies that affect and improve agriculture today? What are the new discoveries and inventions that are important in agriculture?

Answer 1

Round Up ready corn and other genetically engineered plants: This is a plant that was engineered to resist pest control chemicals. This helps farmers control pests and weeds with out killing their own plants.

Large Combines make harvesting crops quicker and easier than the old days.

Medications all over have made it easier to raise healthier happier animals.

There are all kinds way to many to mention.

Answer 2

Various technical system are used to improve agriculture. some of them are:

1) Computer controlled Green houses, which vary temperature, air flow, ammonia based cooling effect, water sprinkler, motorized windows automatically.

2) Laser based Auto-Levelling to save water for various crops like Rice, sugarcane

3) Automatic Seeders

4) Light Dependant Resistor based vegie sorting machines, which sort of different qualities of vegies

5) Robotic shape based pruning & fruit picker.

6) Simulation softwares for plant growth/ water requirement estimation(Australian company called Greenhat developed two softwares Plantmod & watermod)

Answer 3

I'v heard of DRIP Irrigation which conserves the water resource.

Answer 4

No till farming with improved Chemicals. High Tech Equipment. GPS for Improved Fertilizer and Chemical application. Genetics for improved Crops. Better fuels for Equipment. Larger Equipment and More dependable. For the Livestock better Feeds and Supplements. Leaner Beef and Pork. Better Raising Conditions.

Answer 5

One thing that I became involved in a number of years ago, and there is still a lot of work going on to this day, is hydroponics. I fell in love with that branch of agriculture and down the line I received some funding to do a small project in organic hydroponics in tandem with organic fish farming. It was very prolific, especially the produce. One product I tried small scale was strawberries. Had I received the type I ordered, day neutral varieties, it would have been a much better experiment (the company shipped the wrong plant type). For the one that I had, though, I have never had a more spectacular flavor in my life. It was a huge success, as were all the products. The tomatoes were the best I have ever had.

The greenhouse had an 88% production area. I went on to do a large lettuce facility from there, but my mistake was that I leased the land. It was sold the year I was to break even, and it broke my heart. That was a 90% production area.  There is still a lot to be done in the field, and I have some ideas left to unleash on the world. There is also space to conquer and I know just how to do agriculture in zero gee hydroponics. HA!

Answer 6

There can be many areas in agriculture where modern technology can improve productivity.

But in large parts of the world there is no infrastructure to support these techniques. What should be done is to use technology to enable small farmers to produce more using traditional farming methods. In the third world  countries power outage is very common. There is no power connection even in many small farms.

The optimum use of technology probably lies in using biotechnology for developing responsible, genetically engineered seeds to grow disease and pest resistant crops, develop non-toxic(To humans) bio-pesticides, and develop on farm solar powered dryers and such equipment for minimal local processing to minimize loss of produce.

Answer 7

the most important step in the last 40 years has to be biotechnology.  In the next 50 years we will have to feed more people than the entire history of mankind.  Yields need to be more, inputs less, tolerance and disease resistant varieties, environmental impacts needes to be reduced (chem/fert), energy crops developed and current crops need to be more efficient.  There is no question, this is our best hope for the future