Tea Imnadze

Have you ever wished you could just print out a fresh meal? I have. Remote work is a total luxury, but when there’s nowhere nearby to grab a healthy bite, cooking quickly becomes a chore. Still, our bodies need clean nutrients and vitamins to keep firing on all cylinders. What if you could click a button and instantly get a perfectly balanced fuel source? Next-gen 3D printers do exactly that. They use cartridges filled with nutrient-dense pastes - like microalgae, upcycled fruit pulp, and alternative proteins - to construct functional, healthy bites layer by layer. The real magic is hyper-personalization. By syncing with smart wearables, these printers can read your real-time biometric data and meter out vitamins, caffeine, or electrolytes to the exact milligram. It's a customized nutritional prescription, engineered specifically for your body's immediate needs. Next snack break: are you setting a microwave timer, or just hitting print?

Europe's recent heatwaves made climate change impossible to ignore - and the first casualty is always water. Plants need it, it's scarce, and we need to get smarter about using it. Drip irrigation isn't new anymore - it works, but only with real management behind it. Orchards are usually split into blocks to keep things simple. But soil doesn't care about block lines. I saw this firsthand: a block of water-sensitive Chandler trees had compact, moisture-holding soil on one side - and rocky, fast-draining soil in the middle. Same irrigation schedule, same variety, completely different results. Some trees thrived. Others just survived. The fix isn't more water - it's better mapping. A proper soil analysis before setting up blocks and irrigation zones would have caught this from day one. The numbers back this up: a recent meta-analysis of AI-driven irrigation found 30-50% water savings and 20-30% yield gains. Early days, but promising. What's stopping more orchards from mapping soil before mapping blocks?

Are we still managing orchards the old-fashioned way, or is it time for a new perspective? Right now, drones in Georgia are mostly used just for spraying. But they can do so much more. As our apple orchards rapidly expand, managing thousands of trees by hand is becoming nearly impossible. Many managers still send workers row by row to manually spot sick plants or empty spaces for new seedlings. It is exhausting work. Satellite data sounds like an easy fix, but it simply isn’t sharp enough to see individual trees. Mapping drones create perfect digital layouts of the land. With simple software, they can automatically count trees, pinpoint missing seedlings, and catch early signs of plant stress before it spreads. They can even check summer pruning results in a fraction of the time. Best of all, drones save this data. You can track your orchard’s health history season after season. What are your thoughts - what do you think is stopping orchard managers from taking the leap into precision farming?

Over the past year, my coworkers have really come to appreciate digital data in agriculture. However, introducing software is a major challenge when the workforce struggles with technology. From what I’ve observed in Georgia, easily 90% of the agricultural workforce is over 35, and many have only recently learned to use WhatsApp. ​Expecting immediate software adoption is premature. Technology simplifies work, but it requires a smart investment - we must first evaluate if our team is actually ready. ​I believe the best solution is hiring dedicated data managers. Field workers can simply report their updates to these specialists, who input the data to keep operations on schedule. This bridges the digital gap without overwhelming the team. ​How is agricultural technology used by staff in your countries?

Has anyone here used an autonomous tractor in an orchard? This spring in east Georgia was tough - frost, heavy rain, and shorter application windows hit at the same time while labour was already hard to find. Spraying five hectares takes two hours. Some blocks reach their sixth application while others are still on their fifth. The pressure on drivers is real. Hours in a small cab, early mornings in remote fields and health risks - if something goes wrong mid-spray, the driver has to step out and risk direct contact with pesticides. I believe autonomous tractors could change this. No driver needed - operations managed remotely. If you use them, how do they perform?

Lately, I’ve been thinking about how susceptible modern crop varieties have become to pests and diseases. Breeders focus so heavily on yield, convenience, and appearance. ​This weekend, during a trip, I noticed a wild walnut tree growing along a mountain road. Having spent eight months living in a walnut orchard, I instinctively started examining its leaves. To my surprise, there were very few aphids, and I even spotted some ladybug eggs nearby. This wild tree is massive and unreachable, and its nuts have incredibly hard shells - a stark contrast to the "Chandler" variety, which stays relatively short and produces easy-to-crack nuts. Yet, I vividly remember that two years ago at this time of year, despite having natural predators like ladybugs around, we were desperately applying pesticides to beat back an aphid infestation in the orchard. ​We have gained a lot of convenience, but our trees now require high maintenance. It makes me wonder: should we continue focusing strictly on the fruit, or is it time to prioritize the resilience of the plants themselves? In this picture, you can see four small aphids along the leaf veins:

GPS tracking has made my work as a junior agronomist more effective. Two years ago, while working in a walnut orchard, I had to check field coverage by physically following the tractors, which was impossible to do all the time across 150 hectares. The drivers would report their completed tasks, but I never fully knew if they had skipped any rows. It wasn't on purpose - we are all human and make mistakes. ​After a year, I shifted my career to an apple orchard, where I can easily monitor both coverage and tractor speed from a distance - something that is very hard to control on-site. Implementing this technology has made my work not only easier, but far more efficient. In my country, Georgia, new technologies are adopted quite slowly, and people tend to be pretty skeptical. How is the situation in your countries?

What if we cut down pesticide use by using light itself? ​Constantly switching chemical groups to avoid pest resistance and watching crops become more vulnerable motivate me to find sustainable alternatives to chemical application. ​Instead of just treating symptoms, I believe the real solution is to make plants stronger. ​During my research, I came across the UV-C boosting technique, in which automated UV-C light machinery is used in the field to flash light onto crops. This exposure prevents fungal growth while triggering the plant to increase its salicylic acid levels, which acts as a natural systemic defense. ​Early data shows that it has been helping farmers lower application rates and costs while maintaining high production. But the question is: how will it affect plants in the future? ​Has anyone here used this technique, and what do you think about its long-term effects?