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Gosia Wozniacka and Terence Chea<\/strong> On a windy morning in California\u2019s Salinas Valley, a tractor pulled a wheeled, metal contraption over rows of budding iceberg lettuce plants. Engineers from Silicon Valley tinkered with the software on a laptop to ensure the machine was eliminating the right leafy buds.<\/p>\n The engineers were testing the Lettuce Bot, a machine that can \u201cthin\u201d a field of lettuce in the time it takes about 20 workers to do the job by hand.<\/p>\n The thinner is part of a new generation of machines that target the last frontier of agricultural mechanization \u2014 fruits and vegetables destined for the fresh market, not processing, which have thus far resisted mechanization because they\u2019re sensitive to bruising.<\/p>\n <!– <\/p>\n –><\/p>\n This article was posted: Monday, July 15, 2013 at 10:41 am<\/p>\n Tags: domestic news<\/a>, food<\/a>, technology<\/a><\/p>\n
Seattle Times<\/a>
July 15, 2013<\/p>\n
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