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For the first time, researchers from the University of Tokyo have managed to create a largely automated method to boost agricultural yields, which can benefit many and help pave the way for future systems that can harvest crops directly.
<p>For reasons of food security and economic incentive, farmers continuously seek to maximize their marketable crop yields. As plants grow inconsistently, at the time of harvesting, there will inevitably be variations in quality and size of individual crops. Finding the optimal time to harvest is therefore a priority for farmers. A new approach making heavy use of drones and artificial intelligence demonstrably improves this estimation by carefully and accurately analyzing individual crops to assess their likely growth characteristics.</p>