Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

One of my other interests happens to be hobby robots and growing strawberries. So it just seemed very logical to me at least to try and merge everything together. We purchased a new tractor with some very nice features such as hydrostatic drive and cruise control of all things. Sooo why not! My current thinking is to use my MacBook Pro with Fusion 5.0.2 in order to use a program called RoboRealm.

http://roborealm.com

Long story short, I reached out to friends at TCROBOTS here in Minnesota. My good friend Jeff suggested using RoboRealm and even did some beginning experiments that really got my attention.

Here is a link to Jeff's newest machine vision experiment:

http://sampson-jeff.com/roborealm/rows/rows.htm

I'll post some current pictures of the "problem space" tomorrow. Stay tuned.

Who knows maybe RR could be used to identify sick plants?

Expensive mistake if you get the code wrong

You sure are right about that Dr. Luke!

It's going to take a long time to develop something. If something does come of this stuff hopefully it will be very mundane and even down right boring

I got Fusion mounted on the Mac and I'm going thru all the tutorials and info. After that the next step will be to load System 7 and check all that out.

Here are some pictures of a bare "problem space" or "section". This is just one "section" of the field and is 40 feet (12.19 meters) by 200 feet (60.96 meters). One "section" is the area confined by irrigation laterals. In that space we put in 9 rows of plants. The rows are about 4 feet (1.219 meters) on center. The tractor straddles the row for all operations. When I turn around at the end of the row the 6" (15.24 cm) irrigation main is temporally moved out of the way.

The first year is devoted to cleaning up the field of weeds and volunteer plants, usually by tilling and maybe a green manure crop.

The second year we put in mother plants, encourage runner growth and remove flowers so as to build strong plants. We continue with weed control.

Then the 3rd year we have people come in and pick their own berries. We may leave a field in production for about 2 years or more depending on insects and weed pressure.

And one last thing, each winter we have to cover plants with a lot of straw to protect them from winter damage. When frost is a problem in the spring we also use the irrigation system to "frost protect". By irrigating during frost, the ice that forms helps to protect the plants and developing flowers and fruit.

Besides the weeds our number one insect pest is the Tarnished Plant Bug. It feeds on flowers and the resulting fruit is unmarketable. I have heard that some growers are experiencing a new pest, some kind of fruit fly.

Anyway, I hate fighting weeds and insects, thats what drove me into aquaponics. Maybe some day I can replace the dirt farming with water farming?

Damn it

Somebody beat me to it

http://www.roboticharvesting.com/videos.html

Well I tried loading System 7 according to Fusion 5 Instructions BUT I'm having trouble in that Fusion will not replicate the MS key I'm trying to put in.

So I've sent email to MS AND Fusion asking for help. Fusion said they will answer in 24 business hours.

Has anyone experienced problems registering 7 and or loading 7 in Fusion?

I hate computers.

I hate computers!

Why do do they have to be sooo dumb!

AND

The software companies are just as bad!.

Why do they torture people by having them type in 25 gobbledygook characters?

Why can't they just input the product key automatically?

Anyway System 7 and OS X 10.7.5 are finally playing nice in Fusion 5.0!

If the software is on CD or DVD, it's really expensive to do runs with unique data on each one.
For downloaded software, just laziness on the part of the developer.