Need to Know: Robots down on the farm

On this week's "TechKnow," Marita Davison explores two innovative robots that are helping farms and vineyards change the way they plant and pick their crops.

Agrobot is a Spanish company that has developed an innovative way to pick strawberries. Their SW 6010 harvester uses cameras to analyze a vine and select only the ripest berries:

The Agrobot makes strawberry picking more efficient, though some human contribution is still required. The delicate nature of strawberries requires that they be packed into containers by hand.

Vision Robotics has developed several produce and harvest management automation projects, including robots that can thin lettuce crops, estimate croploads in orchards, and survey orange groves. Their robotic pruner for vineyards is designed to "prune in the style of good hand pruning for about half the cost of a manual labor team."

To learn more about robotic farming innovations, watch "TechKnow" Saturday 7ET/4PT.