ALEXANDRIA, Va., May 12 -- United States Patent no. 12,626,477, issued on May 12, was assigned to Deere & Co. (Moline, Ill.).
"Method and apparatus for automated plant necrosis" was invented by Lee Redden (Palo Alto, Calif.).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A method of real-time plant selection and removal from a plant field including capturing a first image of a first section of the plant field, segmenting the first image into regions indicative of individual plants within the first section, selecting the optimal plants for retention from the first image based on the first image and the previously thinned plant field sections, sending instructions to the plant removal mechanism for removal of t...