Johnny Appleseed is back in the form of an AI robot.
Carnegie Mellon University researchers developed the robot named Johnny B. Root to intelligently plant trees at scale with minimal human oversight. The robot learns where to plant trees in a virtual world that simulates how they grow, store carbon, and affect the environment over time.
The team created the digital twin of the forest by combining real-world ecological data with simulation models. In the virtual world, Johnny B. Root tests thousands of planting decisions and figures out the best spots for seedlings. The robot drills and places seedlings into the ground with its auger and high-precision arm.
The simulation acts as a time machine, packing decades of forest growth into hours. Once trained, the knowledge is transferred to the physical robot through a process called Sim2Real, short for Simulation to Reality. It avoids obstacles with its LiDAR and vision-based detectors.
AppleSeed Labs, the team within CMU’s Kantor Lab that developed Johnny B. Root, received the Excellence in Regenerative Agriculture award at the 2025 Farm Robotics Challenge. The team was advised by
The team at Carnegie won the excellence in regenerative agriculture award at the 2025 Farm Robotics Challenge.