True but you also need to make those pretty robust and probably put deeper into the ground because the shear load increases significantly. That then eats into the actually money saved for putting the whole investment together.

As much as I want solar everywhere - it far from a sure thing for making/saving money.

Mowing bots are likely a cheaper solution. But kinda silly when sheep exist.

> You do realize

Please omit snarky phrases like this from comments on HN. The guidelines make it clear we're trying for something better here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

> Ranchers cut hay to get their pastured cattle through the winter. They can't have portions of their field unreachable by a tractor.

No one's banning hay fields. You can do both.

https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/food-and-farms/wheres-t...

"The solar canopy also protects the grasses, keeping them green and dewy, even as nearby fields blanch and crisp in the sunlight. Shallanberger rotates the herd every few days, a key tenet of regenerative farming philosophy, so they munch on fresh grass while the rest of the field grows back. They move through all 15 paddocks in about 45 days; if the site relied on mechanical mowers, they’d trim every 45 days, too."

"Vegetation management is one of the most significant costs for solar plant maintenance in the Southeast, Shallenberger said. In the first six months, the cattle took care of about 75% of the mowing — he had to bring in conventional equipment for some woody weeds that the cattle don’t care for. Once the pasture is more established, the herd could handle up to 95% of the site’s mowing needs."

> Reasons like this are why this type of tech will always be popular on HN but they just can't figure out why farmers don't want it.

Farmers come in different sizes, shapes, locations.

The largest https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cattle_station is several times the size of the state of Rhode Island, and chances are there're some spots where a bit of shade is welcome. I can also assure you no one's mowing/haying that size a property.

Why should the tractor be the old tractor when we are talking about a futuristic PV field? There is already a market for these autonomous tractors and seems they are all about half the height of a traditional tractor, basically the same vehicle with the cab cut off. Then for specifically mowers they can get pretty slender. I imagine a purpose built mower/hay harvester could be very slim. Huge advantage for the farmer if these are electric as well; power would be "free" from pv field and you only need a single technician or mechanic perhaps to maintain this operation.

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