To test AlphaGarden’s performance, the UC Berkeley researchers planted two side-by-side farming plots with the same seeds at the same time. But since different plants have different needs and grow in different ways at different rates, polyculture farming is more labor-intensive than monoculture, which is how most large-scale farming happens. Polyculture farming mimics how plants grow in nature its benefits include pest resilience, decreased fertilization needs, and improved soil health. The garden itself is somewhat complicated, since it’s a polyculture garden (meaning of different plants). The system includes a high-resolution camera and soil moisture sensors for monitoring plant growth, and everything is (mostly) completely automated, from seed planting to drip irrigation to pruning. But the real question is this: Can you usefully tend a garden with a robot in a way that is as effective as a human tending that same garden? Time for some SCIENCE!ĪlphaGarden is a combination of a commercial gantry robot farming system and UC Berkeley’s AlphaGardenSim, which tells the robot what to do to maximize plant health and growth. And (as I have experienced) you can totally tend a garden with a robot. UC Berkeley has a long history of robotic gardens, stretching back to at least the early ’90s. In this paper, we consider the question “Can Machines Garden?” based on comparing human versus machine ability to tend a real polyculture garden. In 1950, Alan Turing considered the question “ Can Machines Think?” and proposed a test based on comparing human versus machine ability to answer questions.
In fact, in some metrics, the robots can do even better. This is especially true that there is now data from roboticists at the University of California, Berkeley, to back up the assertion that robotic gardeners can do just as good a job as even the best human gardeners can.
My plants are almost certainly happier this way, and therefore I don’t have to feel guilty about my hands-off approach. These aren’t fancy robots: They’re automated hydroponic systems that take care of water and nutrients and (fake) sunlight, and they do an amazing job. I have accepted this fact and have therefore entrusted the lives of all of the plants in my care to robots.
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