Between rows of corn near Curtis Road and Race Street sprouts bright-green cereal rye, planted by an autonomous robot.

Earlier this fall, University of Illinois researchers remotely steered a four-wheeled device through the cornfield as it skittered seeds across the ground. The seeds grew into cereal rye, a cover crop, which can capture unused nitrogen from the soil and prevent erosion.

This is the I-FARM, a freshly-funded 80-acre “testbed” for digital agriculture technologies.

Read more of the News Gazette article here