I’m designing an open source farming robot (Acorn by Twisted Fields) and I’m looking at doing Charles Dowding’s no-dig farming method. Instead of tillage they drop more compost on top of the beds each season. In that case it would be super helpful for our robot to be able to scoop from a pile of compost and distribute it over the beds. You think there’s a lot of value in that? I’m still mulling it over.
Yes. There are plenty of things that need to be spread on farms. I have a friend who made huge piles of bio-char for spreading in his hops field. Hops fields are full of poles supporting the trellis that supports the plants, so there's a lot to dodge. Doing it with the tractor bucket required a lot of manual touch up after. Also, in landscaping and construction, the ability to move soil, mulch, and gravel autonomously would be extremely helpful. Spreading it evenly would be icing on the cake.
All of his numbers are way low, though. Good luck finding a running tractor for $500-$800, and used loaders are $10-$15k, not $2-$3k. $2k will get you a new set of loader tires.
Here’s a nice overview of a no-dig farm: https://youtu.be/u79tiVcj8bY