SEATTLE — Northwest vegetable farmers may have a new, futuristic tool at their disposal for weed management.

Carbon Robotics, a Seattle-based startup company, is harnessing the power of lasers to zap weeds without tillage, chemicals or hand labor. The technology demonstrates another way that automation is changing the farming industry.

Backed by $37 million in venture capital funding, Carbon Robotics has already pioneered the first generation of its self-driving weeder. The tractor-sized robot roves over fields of row crops, fitted underneath with high-powered lasers guided by cameras and artificial intelligence.

On Feb. 7, the company introduced its latest implement, featuring more than three times the number of lasers for an average weeding capacity of two acres per hour.

“It’s delivered as a tractor attachment or pull-behind implement to better fit in existing farm practices,” said Paul Mikesell, founder and CEO of Carbon Robotics. “It’s really about speed and performance.”

Mikesell described the LaserWeeder as “millimeter-accurate.” The machine’s precision, he said, is driven by “deep learning,” a subset of artificial intelligence that allows it to instantly identify, target and eliminate weeds.

High-resolution cameras feed imagery to an onboard computer capable of distinguishing crops from weeds. By using laser beams, Mikesell said it eliminates the need for herbicides or conventional tillage, making it ideal for organic and regenerative farming systems.

“It’s better to burn the plants and kill them than it is to till them up,” he said. “The lasers actually eradicate the plants entirely.”

Perhaps more significantly from a cost-savings perspective, automation offers an alternative to hand labor, which Mikesell said is becoming harder and more expensive to find. He said the LaserWeeder is also more thorough than human hands, capable of detecting smaller weeds that might slip past work crews.

“People can only do so good of a job. There’s a limit to what they can see,” Mikesell said. “Our computers can see them much earlier and much more clearly than a human can.”

While Mikesell did not give a price for the LaserWeeder, he estimated it will pay for itself within 1-3 years, cutting farmers’ weed control bills by 80%.

Early adopters of the technology have offered rave reviews.

Jeff Morrison, director of innovation and new technology at Grimmway Farms — the world’s largest grower and shipper of carrots, based in Bakersfield, Calif. — said laser-weeding “has the potential to deliver precision, reliability and cost-effectiveness in organic weeding that has not previously been available.”

Josh Roberts, president and general manager of Triangle Farms in Salinas, Calif., said they are always looking for ways to automate farm work, since finding labor continues to be increasingly challenging.

According to an infographic from the USDA Economic Research Service, using data from the National Agricultural Statistics Service, the U.S. experienced a 52% decline in hired farmworkers and 73% decline of family farmworkers between 1950 and 2000.

Immigration policies, rising minimum wages and difficulty using the H-2A visa program has only exacerbated the worker shortage for farmers, Mikesell said.

“Every time we talked with farmers about their biggest pain points and challenges bringing produce to market, it all revolves around labor,” he said.

Mikesell said LaserWeeder sales have been mostly concentrated in the western U.S. — including Washington, Oregon, California, Idaho, New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado and Texas. Average farm size is about 4,000 acres, including a mix of small and large operations.

“It’s all people who are working very hard every day to produce quality produce for the market,” he said.