Harvesting the ‘Hands-free Hectare'

The ground-breaking Hands-free Hectare project (see FW issue of 24 March 2017), which sought to grow a crop using only autonomous vehicles, has come to an end with a successful harvest.

- Joe Spencer

The use of smaller agricultural machines can improve soil and plant health. This has been the premise of a team of researchers from Harper Adams University and farming service company Precision Decisions in the UK. To prove the concept, the team ran the Hands-free Hectare project, becoming the first ‘farmers’ to plant, grow and harvest a crop without human intervention; only small autonomous vehicles and drones were used.

The project started in October 2016 and ended towards the end of last year.

“There’s been a focus in recent years on making farming more precise, but the larger machines the industry is using aren’t compatible with this method of working,” says Jonathan Gill, a researcher at Harper Adams University. “They’re also so heavy they’re damaging the land.”