Tomato vines can look calm from a distance. Up close, they feel like a crowded maze. Fruit hangs in clusters. Stems twist in odd angles. Leaves hide what you need to see. For farmers facing labor ...

A scientist has explained why robots still struggle to pick tomatoes. Labor shortages in agriculture are driving growing interest in robotic systems that can automate harvesting. Yet some crops remain ...

To build a “hand” for a robot apple picker, Joe Davidson first had to learn how to pick apples. After all, he was an engineer, not a farmer. “Picking apples seems like a very simple thing to do,” ...

Apple growers facing tight labor costs may soon have a new tool in the orchard: a harvesting robot that not only picks the ...

The best robots in agriculture are the ones growers stop talking about because they just work, said panelists at CES 2026.

It’s summer, and raspberries are in season. These soft, tartly sweet fruits are delicious but delicate. Most of the time, they have to be harvested by human hands. To help alleviate labor costs and ...

In the Marvel Comics universe, Thor is known for wielding a magical hammer with superhuman stamina. But at North Carolina ...

In the farming of strawberries, high-bed cultivation somewhat eases the associated manual labor, but there is now a new lidar-assisted robot solution to to help harvest such soft fruit as strawberries ...

Tomato greenhouses are becoming test beds for a new kind of farm worker, one that does not just grab every red fruit in sight but pauses to decide which individual tomato is worth picking. Instead of ...