A drone buzzes around tomato plants and strawberry bushes in a humid greenhouse, its propellers gently shaking the flowers. This is what automated pollination looks like, reducing mother nature's uncertainty and chance.
Polybee, an ag-tech start-up, uses drones and artificial intelligence to help farmers grow plants in greenhouses, where there are no natural pollinators like bees. The technology also uses 3D imaging to give growers certainty about the size and weight of produce and their potential crop yields.
"Despite agriculture being one of the first inventions, it is still plagued by a lot of uncertainty in its operations," chief executive Siddharth Jadhav told AAP. "That's been our guiding light - how can we make our food supply more secure?"
Pollination is a major source of anxiety among growers, particularly as weather extremes push more crops indoors, Mr Jadhav says.
Read more at Muswellbrook Chronicle