Robot Farmers & The Book Of Weeds

I noticed a copy of The Book of Weeds: How to Deal with Plants that Behave Badly in the new book section at the library today. I started glancing through it because I've been trying to figure out what the weed that takes over my back lawn each summer is and this book had really nice, big pictures which made it very clear what you are looking at. Often times books like this will have squinkly little line drawings which make it hard to figure out what you are looking at, but this book made it very easy. (Common plantain by the way). It also gives advice on what causes a particular weed to thrive and how to get rid of it.

It also had a couple of pages about the Field Robot Event. This is a contest for universities working on small robots which can navigate the rows of plants on a field and take action in much smaller spaces than conventional farm equipment. Think a swarm of small, solar powered robots which patrol the rows all day spot digging weeds or spot applying herbicide on specific plants rather than needing to spray the entire field. The site has some interesting pictures and videos.