Automated Pruning of Polyculture Plants | IEEE Conference Publication | IEEE Xplore

Industrial agriculture is based on monoculture, where a single crop type is cultivated, requiring substantial use of fertilizer, pesticides, and water [3], [4]. Polyculture farming, on the other hand, is a sustainable practice in which multiple crop types are intermixed. The inherent benefits of polyculture farming include reduced weeds and soil erosion, better resistance to pests and viruses, and increased water and soil nutrient efficiency [5], [6], [7], [8]. However, polyculture farming is more laborious than monoculture, requiring maintenance to ensure that larger, more dominant plant types do not overwhelm smaller, slow-growing plants. Furthermore, the inherent layout of polyculture farming makes non-invasive autonomous cultivation difficult due to the close proximity of each plant. We present an automated pruning system. We use an improved Plant Phenotyping and a Bounding Disk Tracking algorithm to predict individual plant centers and radii over time [9]. A learned pruning policy

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• Abinaya Dinesh