Kyle Peveto

A future where robots crawl through fields to care for crops and where drones can spot and treat pests from the sky isn’t far off in the mind of Congliang Zhou.

Zhou joined the LSU AgCenter School of Plant, Environmental and Soil Sciences in 2024 to focus on precision agriculture, a strategy that uses data collected with new technologies, such as drones or robotic systems, to make agricultural operations more efficient.

Precision agriculture has increased the efficiency of farms worldwide over the past three decades, and Zhou sees a greater need for labor-saving technologies in the future.

“The labor shortage is a major issue for the modern farming system,” he said. “We cannot find enough people, especially in the United States.”

Born in a small village in Jiangxi, a province in southern China, his parents grew rice on a small farm. When he was a child, they relocated to Zhejiang Province because of employment opportunities. There, Zhou excelled in school and found an interest in science and technology, training for academic science competitions.

When it came time for Zhou to decide where to attend college, he chose Shandong Agricultural University. While engineering and computer science were popular choices for his generation, he often thought of his family’s small farm and felt drawn to agriculture.

“My family and the living environment had some impact on my decision,” he said.

By his second year at the university, Zhou had discovered precision agriculture. His undergraduate thesis focused on precision nutrient management that uses remote-sensing technology to estimate the nutrient content of soils. He loved seeing how quickly new methods developed through precision agriculture could make a difference to farmers.

“For this technology, you can see the immediate influence for some people,” Zhou said.

During his undergraduate studies, Zhou became passionate about precision agriculture technologies, especially geospatial analysis and remote sensing, which involves gathering data from satellites or drones or other means. Zhou then decided to come to the United States to study. A graduate assistantship at Texas Tech University enabled him to earn a master’s degree in geography. There, he deepened his study of precision agriculture by focusing on remote sensing data from satellites. For his thesis, Zhou developed an artificial intelligence model for satellite remote sensing analysis.

In 2019, Zhou began his doctoral work at the University of Florida Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering. Working in the department’s precision agriculture laboratory, he used his experience in spatial analysis, computer vision and artificial intelligence to develop a smartphone app to help strawberry farmers battle two-spotted spider mites. The tiny bugs attack plants, causing leaf cells to collapse and die. They grow less than a millimeter in length. Accurately counting the pests can help farmers decide the optimal method for controlling them.

“Most people — at least me — can’t see them without a magnifying lens,” he said.

Zhou sees new frontiers for technology in agriculture. He has developed a robot that creeps through fields and helps sugarcane breeders more accurately count cane stalks to help in research, and he is working on developing artificial intelligence-enabled weed control systems.

He aims to increase awareness and adoption of precision agriculture tools in Louisiana. The key to adoption is education, Zhou said.

“Helping farmers adopt precision agriculture technologies takes time,” he said. “These are new tools, and they need more time to learn these kinds of things. That’s why Extension programs are so important.”

To educate Louisianans, Zhou trains Extension agents and hosts monthly Artificial Intelligence in Agriculture seminars featuring guest speakers from the AgCenter and other universities. He hosts an annual summit for producers, the agricultural industry, Extension agents, students and researchers to learn from AgCenter faculty. He also works closely with other Extension specialists, Extension agents and farmers to evaluate various precision agriculture technologies. Most importantly, Zhou often meets agricultural producers and learns what needs they may have and then evaluates or develops tools to make their operations more efficient.

“I like to listen to people, talk to people,” he said, “and then bring the precision agriculture technology to the people.”

Kyle Peveto is the editor of Louisiana Agriculture.

This article appears in the summer 2026 edition of Louisiana Agriculture.

Congliang Zhou is using his digital agriculture expertise to create new technologies, including a robot that can roll through sugarcane fields and accurately count sugarcane stalks to aid crop breeders in analyzing new varieties. Photo by Kyle Peveto

Congliang Zhou works on a robotic system he has helped design. Photo by Kyle Peveto