22 March 2024
Theo works days, nights, and weekends in the tulip fields in the Netherlands and never complains of sore muscles.
How is this possible?
Theo is an artificial intelligence, or AI, robot that looks for diseased flowers each spring.
Theo the robot walks with his namesake checking Dutch tulip fields for sick flowers in Noordwijkerhout, Netherlands, Tuesday, March 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong)
The work prevents viruses from spreading among the valuable plants. The robot looks for troubled tulip bulbs and destroys them if necessary. They are removed from the healthy ones in a processing center after the harvest.
There are 45 robots like Theo working in the tulip fields of the Netherlands. Their job becomes important as the winter turns to spring and peak season nears. People come from around the world to see the colorful flowers.
Allan Visser's family has been growing tulips for three generations. This is the second season that he has used a robot. He said it is very costly – the same as a sports car – about $200,000. In the past, knowledgeable farmers would walk the fields looking for tulips that showed signs of sickness.
"I prefer to have the robot because a sports car doesn't take out the sick tulips from our field," he said. "Yeah, it is expensive, but there are less and less people who can really see the sick tulips."
The robot has been trained to see the sick plants. Red stripes show up on the leaves of infected plants. The robots roll through the fields very slowly – about one kilometer per hour – looking for sick tulips.
Visser called the work "precision agriculture" as he explained how the robots work. He said the robots have cameras and take thousands of photos of the tulips. The AI software considers the photos and decides which tulips need to be killed.
"The robot has learned to recognize this and treat it," Visser said.
H2L Robotics is the company that makes the robots. Erik de Jong is the managing director. He said the robots use GPS coordinates to be sure they are killing the correct tulip among many tulips in the field.
He said all of the knowledge they use in the computer program that informs the robot comes from tulip farmers—farmers like Theo van der Voort. He is the farmer that the robot is named after.
Van der Voort retired after 52 years of looking for sick flowers in his fields.
"It's fantastic," he said. "It sees just as much as I see."
I'm Dan Friedell.
Dan Friedell adapted this story for Learning English based on a report by the Associated Press.
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Words in This Story
complain –v. to say you are dissatisfied or are suffering something
sore –adj. painful
peak –adj. to highest or busiest time
expensive –adj. costly
stripe –n. a line of color that is different from the background
precision –adj. very exact and affecting only what is meant to be treated
GPS (Global Positioning System) –n. related to or using a system of satellites whose purpose is to provide very exact positioning information to users on Earth
fantastic –adj. very good, great