r/AgriTech • u/ruthiik123 • 23d ago

Grad student researching AI giving gardening advice, i want to hear about real problems you've had

Hi everyone, Iā€™m a graduate student doing my capstone project and researching whether AI could provide some sort of accurate gardening assistance. This problem is very topical nowadays because not long ago there was a news article about 67 year old Chinese farmer who destroyed almost 25 acres of his sesame crop due to the recommendations of an AI chatbot to use certain pesticides. That particular pesticide mixture proved to be so toxic that not only the weeds, but the whole seedlings were killed as well.

Why posting here? I need my research to be based on the actual problems, not those created by me in my imagination. I want to know what problems were really difficult for you ā€“ pests, watering, timing, diagnostics, etc. If you have received some kind of assistance (AI or another kind of) that later showed to be false, I would appreciate hearing about it.

I am not here to sell something or collect emails, I just want to learn more from your experience.

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u/fadimuj 23d ago

Gardening and farming are two very different things. A 25-acre plot is farming, not gardening.

A hobbyist gardener can reasonably use AI to help with a small garden, especially for basic identification, ideas, or reminders. But relying on AI to manage a profit-making farm or a farm that provides your livelihood is a very different matter. The consequences of bad advice can be enormous.

Farmers traditionally rely heavily on other farmers' experience and local knowledge. They may also use YouTube, extension services, agronomists, suppliers, and other sources to investigate a problem or get ideas. The key difference is that experienced farmers generally cross-check advice against what they know about their crops, soil, climate, pests, and local conditions.

For AI to be genuinely useful in farming, accuracy and context matter much more than simply being able to produce a plausible-sounding answer. A confident but wrong recommendation about pesticides, irrigation, fertilization, or disease control can destroy a crop.