- Author: Richard Smith
- Posted by: Gale Perez
Published on: May 30, 2017
Automated lettuce thinners that use a spray mechanism to remove unwanted lettuce plants and weeds have been widely adopted in the Salinas Valley and desert production districts. The machines utilize a camera to capture images of the lettuce plants in the seedline, calculate plants that need to be removed and those that will be kept (keepers) and then it activates a spray mechanism treat the unwanted plants. The spray mechanism has advantages over mechanical devices (e.g. swinging or spinning blades) because they do not disturb the soil or cut roots, and in addition, they have less inertia and can be quicker in responding to a signal from the computer. However, spray mechanisms can potentially drift or wafting control materials onto the...
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