Our company is very focused on the science of the plants and the soil and have developed products that do some amazing things with plants. We have seen potato fields go without pesticides by using one of our products that uses an extract from another plant. It doesn't kill the bugs, but makes the plants not desirable to the bugs.
Plant physiology is still in its infancy. Plants are very much like the human body and so many respects (immune system, nutrient requirements, cell structures, growth needs, disease prevention) and there are so many things we don't know about the plants. For example, plants need zinc to process calcium, yet we don't know why.
In terms of technology,
1) our Phosphorous product allows a grower to reduce their phosphorous inputs by 20-50X. Another one of our products allow for water reduction by up 25%.
2) Hyper-spectral imaging is in its infancy but possibly being used to diagnose problems in plants before they are visible with the naked eye.
3) Drones is a big one right now being used for imaging, spot treatments of fertilizers. I can definitely envision a day when they will use these for picking crops.
4) For every crop, there is an inventor who has created a gizmo to make their jobs easier. For the most part, these are all designed to reduce labor costs (usually their #1 expense). Almonds - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0UAbuUW2Lw Cherries - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UX_t1hkqTVQ Blueberries - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bt73GOk4JRY